


Super Moon: The Curse of the Rose

by SoulSurvivor_36



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Fic Facer$ Charity Auction, Gen, Genderbending, Metafiction, Sam Winchester-centric, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulSurvivor_36/pseuds/SoulSurvivor_36
Summary: Sam finds himself in a strange place with people he knows, and yet they are acting quite strangely.  What is going on?  Sam needs to figure it out and quick before he ends up trapped in this Anime farce forever.This is my Fic for the Fic Facer$2018 auction.  I wanted to crossover SPN with the movie of my bidder's choice, and opened up a few criteria...  These were her choices:-PG-13 rating-Sam-centric story-No specific love interest-Heterosexual relationships (Oops... I might have brushed and smeared a few lines here)-Some meta-awareness on the characters' parts-Genderbend the charactersStaying true to the original movie's genre...-Chosen movie: Sailor Moon R: The Promise of the RoseI dedicate this lovely mash up of weirdness to you Daphney...  Challenge accepted!  I hope you enjoy





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JuliaHouston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaHouston/gifts), [Caged_Heat_40](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caged_Heat_40/gifts), [Wisdom_of_Insanity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisdom_of_Insanity/gifts).



_Hi!  I’m Serena, an ordinary teenage school girl who happens to own the world’s most powerful compact.  With the help of my magical powers, I become the champion of justice known as SAILOR MOON!_

_Hey!  Wanna meet my friends?  This is Amy.  She’s the smartest person in our school, a real brainiac.  We also know her as, SAILOR MERCURY!_

_And this is Raye.  She has a really bad temper but she’s cool, she’s a psychic!  She becomes SAILOR MARS!_

_My friend Lita is the best cook, but she really cooks when it comes to the martial arts.  She is SAILOR JUPITER!_

_Last, but not least is Mina with my cat Luna and her cat Artemis. She’s famous as Sailor V but we call her SAILOR VENUS!_

_We are one great team.  We are the SAILOR SCOUTS!  Our job’s to protect the planet and ensure peace on Earth!  YEAH!_

 

 _¯_ _Fighting evil by moon light_

_Winning love by daylight_

_Never running from a real fight_

_She is the one named Sailor Moon_ _¯_

 

Sam shook his head several times trying to clear the ringing from his ears.  Beside him Dean was fiddling with something in his hands.

“Would you put that down?  Why do you always insist on touching everything?”  Sam asked his brother, shaking his head at his childishness.

Dean rolled his eyes and put whatever it was back on the shelf with a loud clang that was quickly followed by a series or clatters and scuffles as he clumsily set off a chain of dominos leaving behind it puffs of dust.  Sam frowned at the strange phenomenon, confusion and disbelief playing on his face.

Dean moved past him knocking into his shoulder and Sam glared at his brother again before taking off after him.

“What were we talking about before?  I feel like it was important, but I can’t remember.”

“It’s all that floppy hair on your head, it’s muffling everything and stopping you from thinking.”

“Shut up, Dean.”

“No seriously!  Have you looked at yourself lately?  You’re starting to look like Shaggy in Scooby Doo…  All long awkward limbs and hippy hair.”

“Ha ha, jackass.  I’m not the one knocking everything over.  Seriously though, what was I saying?”

“I don’t know, it all sounds like Charlie Brown to me, wan wa wawan, waaaaaan!”

Sam sighed and pursed his lips to stop himself from snapping back at Dean.  When his brother got into that mode, there was just no talking to him anyways.  He looked around himself at the shop they were in and stopped in his tracks as Dean moved off down another aisle.  He could see there were objects of various shapes and sizes on the shelves around him, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out exactly what they were, and the further down the aisle he looked the more misshapen and vague things got.  He frowned looking at the far wall of the store and seeing only the faintest lines, giving him a colourless impression of a wall of windows, but nothing beyond them.

“What the hell?” he muttered, catching a glimpse of his own hands and looking down at himself.  He seemed to be lacking in definition somehow, like everything had been outlined and air brushed.  Even his shirt didn’t wrinkle in any way that made sense, no matter how much he twisted and turned as he tried to put his finger on what was wrong.

Dean wandered back towards him with his hands in his pockets and Sam noticed the same lack of definition on him.  Even his hair was just barely an impression of hair. Like they were…  drawn, or maybe…

“Dean?” Sam called out to him, getting his attention, “Did you fall asleep with your stupid animated porn playing again?”

“Shut up, it’s not stupid!  Besides I didn’t watch anything last night.  Why?”

“I dunno…  I think I’m dreaming…  Ow!” Sam exclaimed wrapping his long fingers around the upper part of his arm where Dean had just clogged him.  “What the hell, Dean?”

Dean shrugged and turned away, “Not dreaming.”

Sam bit back the insults he would dearly love to prattle off at his irritating dumbass of a brother and took off after him, looking again at the surroundings.  If this wasn’t a dream, then what was going on?  “You don’t think there’s anything weird about this shop?”

Dean looked around too as he fiddled with a shapeless blob on the shelf again, before wiping his hand on his solid blue pants.  Were those jeans?  “I don’t see anything.  Looks like a regular shop to me.”

Sam was about to comment, wondering about how they had come to be in the shop in the first place when behind him the shelves started shaking and quaking.

 

Behind the shelves, Bobby and Jo were holding back Chuck as he threatened to burst in on Sam and Dean’s argument like he could solve all their problems.

“Come on, guys.  We ain’t supposed to be here spyin’ and those idjits.  They can figure their own stuff out like adults.”

“Well, ain’t that just like you, Bobby Singer!  We’re tryin’ to help these boys out and you want to bail because the emotions are just gettin’ to ya!  Typical.”  Ellen threw over her shoulder at the bearded, baseball cap wearing hunter as she adjusted her position against the shelves trying to see the Winchester boys as they argued.

Gabriel straightened up from his own spy hole.  “Sshh!  If you dimwits don’t shut up, they’re going to hear us and the trap I set is going to be a total failure!”

“Oh please!” Jo said looking up from her own spot and crossing her arms over her chest to give the arch angel, master of mischief, her best cold glare, learned from her mother of course, “You think your tricks are all that, but all they are, are ridiculous excuses for ruining people’s lives.”

“My tricks are hilarious,” he retorted in a mumble.

“Where’d Dean go off to?” Ellen said looking through her peep hole, and everyone scurried back to their watching stations enthralled by the boy drama unfolding.

“This is ridiculous,” grumbled Bobby in a huff.

“Hey!” Chuck exclaimed, “This is writing gold!  The fans love a good brotherly angst scene.”

“You mean, they love turning the angst scene into brotherly love scenes…  if you catch my meaning,” Gabriel announced pumping his eyebrows suggestively.

“Idjit!”

“All I need is to snap my fingers and I bet you I can get those boys kissing and making out… I mean up, in no time.”

Suddenly Gabriel was buried in a pile of bodies as they all surged forward collectively to shut him up.

 

Sam looked down at the dust cloud at his feet, the occasional exclamation of pain and arm or leg coming out of it.  He coughed to clear his throat and the movement stopped dead.  What he found on the ground before him made his eyebrows jump up his forehead.  What circumstances had brought these particular people from different casts of his life together?  Jo, Ellen and Bobby he could understand, they knew each other, but how did Chuck get involved?  And Gabriel?  What the hell was he doing there?  Sam suddenly got the immediate urge to protect his balls with his hands.

But if Gabriel was there, Sam reasoned, it could explain everything going on and why things were so strange!  He had been the one to trap him and Dean in TV land in the first place.  Sam reached down and grabbed the small man by the throat and shook him.

“Whoa! Hey!” he exclaimed between gurgles and yelps.

“You did this!  Put us back!”

“Wrong, Bucko!” Gabriel answered, “I didn’t do anything!  Put me down!”

Sam watched in dread as Gabriel raised his hand, fingers ready to snap, in a gesture Sam had come to see as leading to the next torture.  Painful memories of the genital herpes commercial swam up and he let go of Gabriel’s shirt.  The angel snapped his fingers anyways, and everyone froze as they collectively held their breath waiting to the Trickster’s twisted humour to be inflicted on their bodies and souls.

But nothing happened.  Sam blinked and looked around.  Gabriel frowned and snapped his fingers again.  “Huh,” he said, “That’s weird.”  The angel shrugged as though apparently losing his powers was as insignificant as finding a mystery bruise on an arm while showering.

Slowly the rag-tag group got to its feet, the embarrassment of having been caught spying creeping up their necks and settling in their cheeks.  Sam’s eyes widened as he stared at Jo, something pulling at his subconscious like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

“Where’d Dean go?” she asked, looking around.

Sam looked around too, but it was clear that his brother had left the oddly undefined store.

“I think he’s outside,” said Chuck, with the assurance of someone with an all access pass to both Winchesters, which was fairly accurate, prophet and all.

The group made its way towards a door Sam hadn’t realized was there until they had started moving towards it.  Actually, he was pretty sure that there had not been a door there at all before they had needed it.  He glanced down again at his shapeless fingers like perfectly elongated star points and wondered again about why things were irking him so.  He began to follow friends, arch angel and prophet out the door but like the snap of demon fingers, he found himself outside instantly.

Dean was standing still at the top of a path and looking out on the foreign landscape before them.  Sam looked around too, his discomfort growing as he realized he had no idea where they were.  Trees lined an escarpment of carefully tended rows of flowers and herbs intercut with cobble stone pathways.  In the distance, he could vaguely make out the shape of a building backed with a thick cover of trees like a watercolour painting.  In front of it was the stone basin of a fountain that was quietly burbling away.  The sky above was blue with the vague shapes of identical white clouds repeating themselves like a pattern in a video game.

He walked up to his brother and looked back at the rest of the group and suddenly, he realized what was truly wrong with this picture.

“Dean!” he exclaimed, wide eyed as he stared at the crochety old man in the oil stained shirt and ratty baseball cap.  “It’s Bobby… he’s--”

“Here.  I know!  And you thought he wanted nothing to do with you because of the whole apocalypse thing.  You’re welcome.”

Sam frowned at Dean and tried again.  “Ellen and Jo are--”

“Hunting together!  I know right?  The world’s gone all topsy turvy and squiggly.”

“No, Dean—”

“Sammy, get behind me,” Dean said, suddenly sounding on high alert and shoving him behind him like when they were kids.

Instead of getting angry, Sam turned his attention to what was happening around them.  The sky had turned dark suddenly like someone had dimmed the lights.  Purple-black clouds like a sudden storm had materialized from nowhere and a chill swept through the gardens and trees in a shiver you could follow from the far end of Sam’s vision right to where they were standing and back around to where it came from.  Just like crab-apple blossoms shaken by a sudden draft, petals swirled around them, but Sam could not see where they were coming from no matter where he looked.  He looked up, his attention pulled to the odd sky again, and saw more of the light pink things floating down from the strange clouds as though they were snowflakes.  Their perfume floated down on the breeze as well, a delicate aroma that would have been like a soothing balm had the circumstances not been so other worldly.

The sudden twilight brought on by the dark clouds’ shedding these delicate flower remains masked the arrival of a new character in this farce, and this was what Dean’s eyes were focused on.  Sam turned away from the inexplicable petals as they thinned and stopped falling altogether, and his gaze landed on a woman wearing a long black dress that swirled and rippled around her long legs.  Her shoulders were bare except for where the locks of her long blue-black hair caressed her skin while playfully dancing in the remains of the softly sighing air.  She had eyes so deeply blue that Dean would argue looked purple, and Sam would find it hard to deny.  Nestled in the middle of a face as white and smooth as porcelain, their glassy clarity made her look like an exquisite china doll.

As Dean stood mesmerized by the woman’s approach, a chill ran down Sam’s spine.  He shifted his stance, on guard, unsure what danger this person was bringing with her.  His feeling of unease was not appeased in the least by the bland reaction, or lack thereof, from the rest of the hunters gathered behind him.  The woman raised her hand as she drew closer, Dean did the same, reaching towards her in numbed greeting.  Danger! screamed Sam’s instincts.  He couldn’t understand why, but she was a threat to them, and his adrenaline kicked in, propelling him forward to intercept the attack.  He grabbed his brother’s shoulder and jerked him back, away from her, years of battle reflexes the only thing keeping Dean on his feet.

“It’s been a long time, Dean,” the woman said in an easy lilt and a voice like warmed honey.

Sam frowned in confusion, “Do you know her?”

“Naw,” he answered vaguely.

“I never gave up hope that I would see you again.  It took me a long time, but I found you.”

The collective confusion was made obvious by the simultaneous cries of “What?” coming from the people assembled to witness the supposed reunion.

“Don’t look at me!” Dean said defensively, looking as confused as the rest of them, “I’ve never seen her before in my life!  I’m pretty sure I’d remember those legs.”

“Now that I found you,” she went on, ignoring the interruptions, “we can finally have everything we’ve ever wanted.  We can be happy, Dean, together.”

With a movement as natural as breathing, she reached out and wrapped her long fingers around Dean’s wrist.  He didn’t break her hold, or walk away, his eyes wide and his mouth a little slack, as he looked down into the woman’s large royal blue eyes.  She was looking at him so earnestly, with a delicate smile that betrayed both trust and happiness.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, no longer sounding so sure of himself, “I don’t remember you.  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“But you have to remember!” she cried out, undeterred by his confusion as she moved a step closer still.

The uneasy feeling had not left Sam during the whole exchange and with every step she took, his every nerve and muscle tightened and screamed with the urgency of action.  Something was off about this whole thing and it was time to get out.

“Right,” Sam said, stepping between the woman and his brother, breaking her delicate hold on his wrist.  “This has been fun, but we have to go now.”

He grabbed his brother’s shoulders to turn him around and march him away from the beauty that had him enthralled, but before he could, he felt the woman’s feather light touch on his own shoulder.  Suddenly, he was shoved to the side by a strength he never would have guessed the small woman had and he flew through the air, only to land painfully on his side a couple meters away.

“Well, someone chomped their Wheaties, this morning,” said Bobby, in a voice that was half awe, as the rest of the group suddenly snapped out of their stupor and rushed over to fuss over Sam.

“What are you doing?” he yelled at them, “Get Dean!”

His worry for his brother was unnecessary though as the woman turned and started walking away.  Dean was still focused on her, a deep frown on his face and his lips pursed thin.  As she neared the basin of the inactive water fountain she turned and called back to him, her sweet voice made thin in the wind’s tendrils, “No one’s going to keep us from being together, Dean.  No one.”

From the darkened sky, a twister of petals cascaded around her in a crazy whirlwind that thickened until she was no longer visible.  The gusts reached the group where they were still huddled over Sam and failing to get him back on his feet, and they all covered their faces to protect their eyes.  Then, the wind died down as quickly as it had come, and they opened their eyes tentatively.  The sky was no longer dark, the fountain was gurgling away, little jets of water shooting up into the air, and there was no sign of the mysterious pink petals… nor the woman.  She had disappeared.

“What in Sam Hill was that?” exclaimed Ellen angrily.

“Girl’s got flare, I’ll tell ya that much,” answered Gabriel.

“You alright, son?” Bobby asked Sam as he stuck his hand out to him.

Sam grasped it and together, they were able to get him back on his feet again.  Bobby smacked his shoulder a couple times, just to be sure.  Jo strayed closer to Dean, who was still staring at the spot where the woman had vanished, and laid her hand on his upper arm.  “Are you okay?”

“That was Roseline, had to be.  But how?” He had spoken so softly, it was hard to make out, but still Jo’s hand fell away limply from his arm and she turned away.  Everything grew still in the suddenly breezeless air that felt heavy with dread at what was to come.  Like a painting, they stood in a loose constellation of characters, gathered in stunned silence and pondering their thoughts while they waited for the cut scene.


	2. Chapter 2

“And finally, we have news from the observatory, that this afternoon a minor planet has been observed approaching the Earth’s orbit at an unusually high speed.  Around 11:20 tomorrow evening, it should be around twenty-five million kilometers from Earth, still a safe distance in astronomical terms.”

The newscaster droned on from the small television set, sitting atop the old counter where Ellen was preparing a roadhouse feast for the people lounging about in Bobby’s small country kitchen.  Outside the windows, night had fallen, and stars were beginning to speckle the firmament and shower their faint light on the rusted cars and piles of scraps that littered the yard.  Bobby and Jo were sitting at the kitchen table, the first looking through the newspaper while the other fiddled on something on her laptop.  All that was visible of Gabriel was his foot swinging from the armrest of the old couch in the next room.  There were two cats gathered with the group as well – one was white with startling blue eyes, that was sitting stiffly on the counter and fixated on the television like the newscaster’s assessment was all important to it, the other cat was black with maroon coloured eyes and was stretched out on top of the set while it nonchalantly swung the tip of its tail in front of the screen.  Chuck had disappeared upstairs as soon as they had arrived claiming that his muse was calling him, and Sam was currently ruminating on the afternoon encounter while he gazed out the window.

“We’ve been tracking the planet’s progress as well,” came a startlingly deep scratch from the white cat as he reached forward to turn off the television with his small white paw.  “There is some concern that its trajectory is headed straight for Earth.”

Sam startled away from the window and looked more closely at the white cat, finding an unsettlingly familiar eye shape and shade of blue.  “Cas?”

“Hello, Sam.”

Sam blinked repeatedly and shook his head, a strange split in his mind forming as part of him understood this was how things always were, while another part of him knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that things were terribly wrong.  It did not help that he seemed to be the only one aware of the strangeness of the scene as everyone else conversed naturally with the cat.

“I just don’t see what the fuss is about,” stated Ellen. “If that planet keeps its distance, it won’t affect us at all, so why worry?”

“Precisely,” came the bored, smoky, accented voice of the black cat as it stretched its back luxuriously, its head hanging off the side of the TV set.  “Sour puss here is just being alarmist, as always.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at the unimpressed feline before jumping down from the counter and landing gracefully at Sam’s feet.  He hopped up into his lap, Sam stiffening his back, instantly feeling awkward.  The cat continued its journey with a hop onto the table top and pawed at Jo’s computer.  She obligingly turned it so he could see the screen and his front paws moved across the keys as nimble as digits.  “I picked up a life force on that planet.  It has an energy signature I’ve never seen before.  It must be very strong if I can sense it even at this distance.”

“What’ve you found out?”  Bobby said, carefully folding away his newspaper.

“The read out from the observatory says the planet is nearly six hundred meters long.”

“That’s big enough to cause some major damage if it collides with Earth.”

“Except, its mass is small.  It’s as if the planet is hollow.  More than likely it would burn out before it ever touched ground.”

“If that’s the case,” ventured Jo quietly, “why is it bothering you so much?”

From the top of the television set came the scuffles and thuds of a much larger animal than the small cat pounding the ground, getting everyone to turn their heads as he got to his feet and stretched slowly.

“Wings just has his panties in a twist again.”

“I do not wear panties, Crowley.”

“How risqué,” the cat’s head bobbed slowly, its maroon eyes focused on the other cat though he had turned away and was now flicking the tip of his tail in annoyance.  “What’s got him more excited than a virgin at a brothel is the type of energy coming from that thing.  Though the mass is small, the plant signature emanating from it is beyond anything poor Castiel here has ever seen.”

“Hold the presses everyone!” came a mocking tone from the other room.  “Tonight, the Imperial Theater proudly presents: the Attack of the Ferns!  It’s gonna be a bloody one folks!  So, grab your pesticides and be ready to throw some fertilizer, ‘cause it’s bound to be disappointing.”

The group turned away, rolling their eyes as one, and Ellen approached the table with a full chicken dinner, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, that were somehow already on the table.  “I don’t buy it.  If an alien plant life were plotting to invade us…  Wouldn’t it be more discreet about it?”

Castiel’s little cat face contorted into a very human looking frown as he considered this, “Certain plants can spread quickly and effortlessly once they’ve established themselves.  The wrong kind of plant could take over the planet and cause mass ecological failures, which could lead to the extinction of certain species if not controlled, including humans.”

“Oooooh, it’s the case of the deadly dandelion!  The murderous marigolds!  The ruthless roses!” Gabriel said as he pulled up a chair to the table and started grabbing food to load his plate.

“Precisely my point,” Crowley said, lying back down on the TV set with his back to the room, “Castiel is just being a mother hen.”

“I am not a hen.  I’m a cat.”

“What, the hell, is going on around here?” Sam exclaimed suddenly, making everyone freeze in their actions and look at him from their seats around the small kitchen table.  “Seriously!  Am I the only one who thinks any of this is… messed up?”

“I’m not sure I understand your distress, Sam.”

“You!  Castiel!  You’re a cat!”

The frown in the white fur of Castiel’s face deepened as he looked down at himself and then back up to Sam, “Yes, that is quite obvious.”

“What’s wrong, hun?” Ellen asked, as she lay a motherly hand on his arm.

Sam shook her off and dropped his head into his hands.  “I don’t know.  Something is... off about all of this.  Like how did we get here so fast?  Was Cas always a cat?  And where did Dean go?”

“Dean went home, silly,” Jo put forward tentatively, “like he always does.”

“Shouldn’t he be here?  What if he’s attacked again?”

“Attacked?” sputtered Gabriel, “I’m pretty sure Dean won’t have any problems figuring out what to do if that hot piece shows up again.”  He pumped his eyebrows suggestively, turning his attention to Jo, “Know what I mean?”

The blonde rolled her eyes.  The white cat took a couple graceful steps and turned to face Sam, settling his rump again, his back ramrod straight.  “Calm down Sam,” he said, in that unmistakable voice, “There is no proof that Dean is in any danger.”  The cat laid its tiny paw on Sam’s hand, the rounded pads pressing into his skin comfortingly as he tried to settle his thoughts and wrap his mind around the situation.

“Total co-dependence those two,” mumbled the black cat from his perch.

“Can’t help but wonder about that girl though.  Who could she be?” asked Ellen, like she was submitting an entry for discussion on a forum.

“She could be Dean’s external projection of an acceptable lover who is actually… Sam!” gleefully suggested Gabriel, while the room resounded with cries of “shut up” and “come on.”

“It could be a spurned lover, I suppose,” ventured Ellen again, “Dean’s sure got plenty of those.”

“Can’t we have one conversation without gossiping like mid-afternoon talk shows?  If Dean wants us to know, he’ll tell us,” grumbled Bobby.

“Hush you lout.  You like talk shows.  And besides, this is hardly gossiping, we’re just worried for Dean.”

“There does seem to be some history between them,” Jo said softly, staring ahead at her plate of mostly untouched food.

Bobby mumbled something incomprehensible in his beard then stuffed a fork-full of mash into his mouth in a declaration that he’d have no more of this conversation.

“Sam, honey, do you remember your brother mentioning a Roseline at all?”

“No, never heard of her.  And Dean is pretty open about the women he’s slept with.  Even when I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Hey, Sam,” Gabriel threw out casually, a twinkle in his eye betraying his mischief, “He ever go into detail?  He ever pull a Dolphin?  A Houdini?  How ‘bout a Pearl Necklace?”

A cry of outrage and disgust rang out from around the table again as Gabriel laughed uproariously.

“What does an aquatic mammal have to do with sexual intercourse?” asked Castiel.

“Why don’t I show you sometime?” came Crowley’s oily voice making Castiel’s pointed ears twitch.

Sam allowed the squabbles and noise to fade away as he remembered a long-ago conversation he’d had with his brother over a few beers.

 

_“I dunno, man. This life, it drags you down.  I just don’t know anymore.  Sometimes, I wish we could just… stop.”_

_“What?  Settle down? You?  I thought you were born for the road… exhaust in your veins and all that.  What girl could ever rival with your car?”_

_Dean laughed looking down at the table and the half empty beer he was rolling between his palms, “Already found her once.  Took all I had to walk away.”_

_“What?  When was this?”_

_“You were at Stanford,” he sighed and took a gulp of his beer, “Feels like another lifetime, don’t it?  Anyways, I started thinking, if you could do it… maybe I could too.”_

_“What was her name?” Sam asked him softly._

_“Doesn’t matter,” Dean stated, shaking the guileless mood that had taken him and going back to his more usual unaffected tone. “This is the only life I’m cut out for: Saving people, hunting things.”_

_“The family business,” Sam finished, holding out his bottle._

_“Exactly,” Dean said with a smile that Sam had learned meant he was hiding some deeper hurt.  Their bottles connected with a clink._

 

The bickering gained in intensity and pulled Sam from his reminiscing, making his head throb painfully.  He quietly pushed away from the table while the conversation continued to degenerate into the taunting of people who knew each other too well to not push each other’s buttons.  He walked out of the house and onto the porch, leaning his arms on the railing with the flaking paint.  He watched the stars scintillating in their black-as-pitch sky and he wondered at the woman’s connection to his brother.  The cool evening breeze rustled the leaves in a nearby tree and he felt its soothing wisps playing with strands of his hair.  Whoever she was, he just couldn’t shake the malice that permeated his memories of the encounter.

 

In the eerie calmness of the night sky, a delicate seed floated down.  It looked as innocuous as a dandelion tuft as it danced and whirled with the wispy wind.   Above the house tops and the trees, and beyond the fields and country roads that surrounded Singer’s Auto Salvage, it twirled seemingly haphazardly, as though happy to be led wherever the wind was taking it, trusting that it would not let it fall somewhere it could not take root and grow.  As the wind moved it beyond the green of the trees and the yellow of the wheat fields and over the pavements of the city streets that had yet to lose their sunbaked warmth, it might have been concerned that this was maybe not so good a spot to rest its fuzzy head and grow, but if the seed had any issue with the landscape change below, it did not show it.  As the seed felt the wind die down to stillness, it began its light descent, rocking back and forth in the residual eddies of air too faint for anything but a delicate seed to feel.  It drew closer and closer to the pavement and the slow withering death it promised, but then, like a sky diver pulling on the toggles of his chute, the seed veered to the side and landed at the base of a small tree, planted in a square of soil barely large enough to contain its roots.  With a sigh of joy, the little seed settled itself into the dirt and began the arduous task of sprouting its roots.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was beating down on the pavement as Sam shuffled along with the group of hunters, letting the seemingly incessant and pointless chatter wash over him without breaking through his distracted haze.  Gabriel yawned so widely he nearly unhinged his jaw, his hand reaching up at the last moment to save the red lollipop hanging precariously from his lip.

“This whole saving the world crap is exhausting.  Why can’t we ever get a day off?” he whined, sticking the cherry flavoured candy back in his mouth.

“Please,” Crowley grumbled from his perch on Bobby’s less-than-enthused shoulder, “saving the world.  That’s tiddlywinks compared to babysitting you lot.  It baffles me that any of you can breathe with all the drama, much less walk, talk and fight evil.  Your incompetence knows no bounds.”

“That’s enough, Crowley,” rumbled Castiel from Jo’s arms.

Sam blinked, overcome once more with that feeling of wrongness as he looked around at the group.  They were making their way down a sidewalk that looked like it could be on any street, in any town: the buildings, the trees, the skyline lacking too much definition to properly serve as landmarks for his befuddled mind.  They were walking in no recognizable scouting pattern, which made him think they weren’t specifically on a mission.  This idea was reinforced by the apparent lack of any weapons on any of them.  But, if they weren’t scoping out a town for a hunt, what the hell were they doing?

Bobby and Jo were walking at the head of the group, though this seemed to be more a way to accommodate the cats’ bickering than any defensive strategy.  Sam was a step behind them, slowed down by his uncertainty, and Gabriel, Chuck and Ellen were bringing up the rear, barely glancing around, and clearly not worried about what might be coming up behind them.  Dean was once more nowhere in sight, and it made the acid churn in his stomach.

“I’m worried about him too,” Jo said in a quiet voice, making Sam startle around.  She was looking right at him, as though he had been the one to speak and she had merely answered him.  “Maybe we were wrong to let him leave with no one to watch out for him.”

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but before he could Gabriel stepped between them and put his arm around her shoulders.  “There’s no need to worry about Dean, sweetness,” he said throwing a conspiratorial wink Sam’s way, “We got access to 24/7 Winchester TV aerial reception right here.”  He turned Jo’s shoulders as he pointed back to Chuck who was giving them all a nervous smile.  “If Dean’s in trouble, we’ll be the first to know.  Ain’t that right, Chuckster?”

“Oh!  Yeah.  Definitely.”

“See?” Gabriel said, a smug little smile on his face as he removed the lollipop from his mouth and leaned in towards Jo.  She smiled awkwardly, giving Sam a frown and shaking her head as she dodged out from under Gabriel’s arm.  Ellen cleared her throat, making everyone turn towards her.  Her face was set in equal parts disbelief and irritation and completely unimpressed with Gabriel’s attempt.  Jo rolled her eyes at her mother and turned back, facing Sam in such a way that he was the only one to see the quick flicker of something like sadness play on her delicate features.  The same something pulled at Sam, that itch at the back of his mind, that feeling that this whole thing was off, and it looked like Jo could feel it too.  However, before Sam could ask her about it, her eyes strayed to look at something behind him and her eyebrows furrowed together.

“Gabriel?” she called out.

Sam turned at the same time as the rest of the group, putting aside his discomfort and confusion once more, to look at what she had seen.  A few steps apart from the group was the sable-haired man, standing alert as he looked off in the distance, an unsettling frown on his usually joking face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked him, trying to get a sense of what could be bothering him about the quiet, empty street.

“Ssh!  My Spidey-sense is tingling.”

“Wha—” Sam’s protest was cut off by Gabriel suddenly taking off across the street and down an alley.  Around him, the rest of the group jumped to action, sprinting after the angel in search of whatever had set him off.  Sam took after them a half second later, Chuck’s cry of “It’s okay, guys!  You got this!” drowing in the ringing from the sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through him.

He didn’t know what to expect as he careened around the corner at the end of the alley and nearly collided with the hunters who had come to a sudden stop and were staring, wide-eyed, at the scene of devastation in front of them.  In the quiet street, not unlike the one they had just come from, and not unlike any city street lined with shops and restaurants, was the most unexpected sight of a dozen, if not two or three dozen bodies littering the pavement like forgotten dolls on a playroom floor.

“What happened to all these people?” asked Jo, a quaver in her voice.

“Are they dead?” asked Sam.

“I ain’t never seen anything like it,” added Bobby, swiping at Crowley’s tail as it curled around his neck.

From Jo’s shoulder came the answer as Castiel’s penetrating look swept the street, “Their energy’s been stolen.”

Sam turned to glare at the black cat on Bobby’s shoulder barely containing a surge of anger as his chest heaved.  “This is your doing!  Demons did this!”

“Hardly,” said Crowley, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  “Demons don’t steel energy, you great lout, they possess the meat suits.  Whatever this is, it’s got nothing to do with Hell.”

“Tell me that doesn’t look like discarded possessed bodies!  Your demons smoked out and left them there to die!”

“Look, whoever did this must be long gone,” ventured Jo rationally, straightening up from looking at one of the bodies, “Arguing about it isn’t going to change anything!”

“Probably gone to find more victims,” agreed Ellen.

“Or plan the next attack,” finished Castiel, “We must act now.”

Without a sound, the corpse at Jo’s feet suddenly reached out and wrapped its cold fingers around her ankle.  In a movement faster than humanly possible, the man stood, pulling her up into the air like she weighed no more than a feather and knocking Castiel to the ground.

“Jo!” Sam and Ellen cried out together as they surged forward to help her.  Before they could reach her though, the blonde swung her free foot up and back, flipping backward in a move worthy of a kung fu master in a martial arts film, the crack of her heel connecting with the man’s jaw making a sound like a snapping tree limb.  He let her go as he fell backwards, and she landed on her feet, flipping her hair back out of her face.

Sam stared at her wide-eyed, unable to wrap his mind around what he had just seen while Gabriel’s voice shot out from beside him: “Nice superhero landing!”

“What is happening?”  Sam whispered to no one in particular, holding back the panic rising in him.

The sky suddenly turned a threatening purple black, and the wind picked up wrapping him in the delicate perfume of those petals from the day before.  His confusion very nearly overwhelmed him as he distinctly thought that he was ready to wake up now.  But, as the bodies strewn about the pavement began to lurch to their feet, the familiar necessity of defending himself and protecting his friends took over and all traces of confusion were replaced by acceptance of the new reality, at least for the moment.

“Their bodies are covered in vines!” yelled out Bobby.  On his shoulder, Crowley was finally looking concerned as he turned his maroon eyes on the scene before them.

“The vines are everywhere!” he said as he jumped down and joined Castiel on the ground.

“Where are they coming from?” Ellen asked, taking a step back as the vine covered corpses moved in on them, hands bent into claws, eyes smoky and unseeing, and mouths open in snarls.

A movement caught Sam’s eye and he turned at the same time as Gabriel called out, “Look!” and pointed at a shadow that had detached itself from the sidewalk and was now scurrying quickly towards an, as of yet, inanimate corpse on the road.  Eyes wide in horror, they watched as the shadow sprouted tentacles and wrapped itself around the body, moving it like some sort of puppet.

“It’s those damn vines that’re controllin’ them!” Bobby exclaimed.

From behind, plant puppets pounced and grabbed hold of Jo and Ellen.  The rest of the group turned to help them but were set upon by the zombies as well.  More joined the fray and soon, all of them were overwhelmed by the puppets’ pulling and grabbing and making it impossible to fight back effectively.  Ellen was judo throwing person after person over her shoulder in an awe inducing effort to not give in, but every time one was defeated, it seemed three more were waiting to take its place.  It was not long before they were all immobilized.

Sam had plant zombies all over him, pinning him on the ground as he struggled against the hands gripping him tightly by his arms, his legs, his hair even.  He couldn’t move without feeling like something was going to be ripped out of a socket.  From what he could see of the others, they were no better off.  He struggled to loosen their grip, but nothing helped.  Sam growled and struggled, the sound quickly turning into a cry as pain shot up his arm.

From his spot on the ground, he could barely make out the writhing bodies of his friends who were also being held down by the zombies’ superhuman strength.  Then from beyond his limited horizon, came a bright red light and a loud echoing cry that reverberated in his mind like an echo trapped on a mountain lake: “Evil… spirits… disperse!”

Gabriel came charging towards them, a look of pure determination on his face and he jumped so high it looked like he was flying, his medium length hair rippling in the wind lashing of his speed.  He had something in his hand and in a gesture like throwing a knife, he released slits of papers into the air around them with a burst like a flame had suddenly lit behind him.  Each of the paper slips somehow found their way precisely in the centre of every plant-controlled person’s forehead.  A touch of the papers to the skin and it was like an electric shock went through all their bodies.  They cried out in unison, the dozens of bodies screaming and groaning, the combination of their different voices creating a strange harmony of torment on a level with Dante’s Inferno.  The vines encircling their limbs caught fire and turned to ash and as the fine powder fell away from their bodies, so did the screams die away leaving behind them nothing but an echo and passed out bodies on the street.

The sky had returned to its previous blue as Sam pushed off the two bodies that had collapsed on top of him and stood up.  Around him, Ellen, Jo, and Bobby were doing the same as Gabriel stood in the center of the street looking very self-satisfied and sticking the lollipop back in his mouth.

“What… the hell… was that?” yelled and half panted Sam, his eyes bulging in a clear testament of how tenuous his hold on his sanity had become.

Gabriel looked around as the team slowly recomposed itself, a frown on his features in response to the verbal attack.  He took a step back when Sam moved in on him, maybe remembering the previous day.  “It’s just a spell, Buck-o.  Chill!”

“I will not chill!” Sam yelled as he stomped up to Gabriel who scurried away to hide behind Bobby.  “This is you!  It’s always… you!  Release us!”

“Calm down, Sam,” Ellen said, approaching him like she was trying to soothe a startled, panicking horse.

Sam shook her off and grabbed for Gabriel around Bobby, but he skipped away again, this time finding refuge behind Jo.

“I swear, I have no idea what you’re talking about!  I had the spell.  I used the spell.  And I saved YOUR sorry butt, you’re welcome by the way!” he finished with a scoff, looking around at everybody gathered, who were now looking at Sam with matching frowns of concern.

The lines in his mind blurred, his earlier feeling of wrongness faltered and seemed to fade as he looked around at the familiar faces of his friends, people he had fought side-by-side with, people he trusted with his life.  If they saw nothing wrong with everything going on, could it possibly be that he was the one with the problem?  Feeling his grasp on what was real and what wasn’t slipping, Sam tried one last time, his anger turning to near pleading.  “Seriously?  None of this is strange to you guys?”

“No, Sam,” answered Jo, keeping her eyes on his, “Everything is like it always is.  Like it’s always been.”

Sam started shaking his head quickly. “No!  No, it’s not!  Cas!” he said, a note of desperation creeping into his voice, “I mean, you’re a cat!  There isn’t anything even remotely weird about that to you?”

“Come to think of it, my fur has been oddly on end lately.  I assume it has to do with letting the vermin in the house.”

“Love you too, wings,” tossed in Crowley with a wink.

Sam buried his face in his hands and quickly ran them through his hair, letting out a growl.

“Sam, if you’re done throwing your tantrum,” said Bobby as he swung a device with blinking lights that looked like an EMF reader, “I’m gettin’ a reading on the energy source that controls the vines.”

Finally, things were making sense. “So, we’re dealing with a ghost,” Sam sighed, the familiarity of dealing with something he’d dealt with his whole life a welcome comfort to his reeling mind.

“Ghost?  No, ya idjit!”

“There!” pointed Ellen as she looked over Bobby’s shoulder at the device in his hands.

Sam turned reluctantly to see what they were pointing at.  At the base of a thin, sidewalk stunted tree was a small pink flower.  It was unlike any flower Sam had ever seen before.  It was pink, with six pointed petals that made it look like a fallen star and six stamen sprouting from its core.  The flower sat atop a thin green stem that would undoubtedly have bobbed in the slightest breeze, had there been any.  At the base of the stem, dark green leaves, pointed and serrated, grew thickly like a green nest.  It didn’t radiate any malice or give off an aura of evil – why would it?  Sam sensed no danger looking at the delicate bloom.  “You’re kidding me, right?  A flower?”

Just as Sam was about to turn away, the flower began to tremble as though unable to contain its excitement.  There was no wind to speak of, no breeze to cause even the most delicate leaf to flutter, and yet, this flower vibrated like someone had put a coin in a motel’s magic fingers device.  And suddenly, the innocuous blossom hopped up, popping its own roots out of the soil’s grasp and stood upon its leaves turned talon like.

Gabriel and Bobby gasped.

Sam gasped.

Jo gasped.

Ellen gasped.

Castiel in his furry cat body gasped.

Crowley looked bored.

Chuck screamed.

Everyone turned their heads towards the sound and there stood the bearded man, at the mouth of the alley through which they had all rushed earlier in pursuit of Gabriel.  He raised his hand and pointed back to where they had been looking. “Um yeah, sorry…  is that plant moving?” he asked, a quaver in his voice.  He swayed on his feet as though the idea of a mobile blossom was just too much for the Prophet of the Lord.  Sam turned quickly back to see the flower making a beeline for him, scurrying on its pointed green talons.

“Protect the prophet!” Castiel called out in his deep scratch.

Gabriel was the first to react, “Stop that wicked green!” he called out, pointing dramatically.  “What?” he added defensively, as Sam threw a frown his way.  The angel shrugged then broke into a run to intercept whatever evil embodied the flower.

Shaking his head side-to-side as the flower rushed on its arachnid-like legs, Sam just stood there.  It was so absurd, all he could do was stare at it.  Werewolves, ghouls, vampires, djinn… he’d fought them all, but this?  A homicidal flower?

“Chuck!” yelled Ellen as she gave chase as well, headed straight for the man who had suddenly gone completely still in terror, “Run, you silly coot!”

The prophet seemed to snap out of his stupor and turned away from the attack, trying to get out of its reach.  Something fell into place in Sam’s mind and he shifted away from what was attacking to who it was going after and he started to move, pushing himself hard to reach Chuck before the threat.  Somehow, regardless of his hesitation, he got there first and just as the little escapee from the shop of horrors leaped at its prey, Sam threw himself at Chuck, side tackling him like a linebacker stopping a run.  Together they shattered through a window display, landing on the glass strewn floor of a restaurant.

Outside, the attack continued as the remainder of the team caught up and did their best to lure the plant away from its supposed target.  The petaled creepy crawly veered to the side, suddenly changing its course, and headed for the regrouping hunters as they took up position in a semi-circle ready to block whatever attack this flowery fury had hidden up its stem.

A lifetime of fighting evil and monsters had not prepared them, however, for what came next.

As they stood their ground, fighting stances and come-at-me-bro faces firmly in place, the little plant charged up the street and began to grow.  Unlike Jack’s magic bean stalk though, it did not settle for simply growing in size.  The talon-like green legs certainly grew in monstrous proportion – the delicate clicking of their sharpened tips suddenly piercing the hard asphalt in a show of both strength and weight as the stem thickened and twisted and bubbled like something was struggling to burst from it.  In a cry of triumph that startled Crowley up a nearby tree, the green skin burst and from its remains sprouted a woman’s torso, head, and arms, her chest covered by golden cups laced in vines like a cross between a Madonna top from the ‘80’s and Princess Leia’s slave bikini.  The pink petals disappeared, lost somewhere on the creature’s back and hidden under a mane of long blue hair that writhed and weaved like Medusa’s snakes.  Most unsettling of all was the thing’s glowing red eyes and sharp fanged teeth peeking out of its smile-twisted mouth.

“HOLY SH—”

“Gabriel!” exclaimed Ellen, giving him a death glare and gesturing towards the readers.

“Holy…  sharpened…  talons?  Batman?”

“Holy sheltered children is more like it,” commented the black cat from his safe perch while he licked at his paw.

“Um, Gabriel?  Time for some fire power again!” suggested Jo, gesturing as the plant monster got dangerously close.  She held her position though, no fear in her eyes as she stared down the threat.

A smile back on his lips, Gabriel crouched and recited his spell again, calling out the words like he was summoning a being from another realm.  His voice echoed with power as he took the spell-bound paper slip between his fingers and unleashed the spinning flame right where the monster should have been.  It veered off out of reach, too fast for anyone to adjust to its new trajectory, and easily dodged the spell that had taken care of the vine-controlled bodies before.  They had no choice but to evade the monster as it bore down on them like a bowling ball going for a strike.

The plant monster’s alabaster arms twisted and split into corded green vines and they shot out, growing impossibly fast.  Jo and Ellen threw themselves to the side, escaping from the tentacle-like grasp, but the vines twisted and curled around Gabriel and Bobby, trapping them against the outside wall of a nearby shop, cracking the cement.  From its back, the pink petals of the previously tiny flower unfurled and opened, large and wide as a satellite dish.

“You think it gets Skinemax?” choked out Gabriel as he struggled to break free of its hold.

“This really ain’t the time for jokes!”  Bobby responded, equally bound.

Ellen and Jo joined Castiel, regrouping to figure out their next move, when they saw the petals unfurling towards the sky.  They watched mesmerized and more than a little awed as the petals began to glow softly.  When Bobby and Gabriel started screaming, their fears were confirmed.

“It’s stealing their energy!” exclaimed Jo, her eyes wide and a bad taste flooding her mouth.

“Like it did all those poor people,” agreed Ellen.

From his safe perch, Crowley chimed in.  “I suppose this might be an opportune moment for those special powers we’ve been training you to use.  Just a suggestion of course.”

“I think Crowley’s right.  We need Star Power to beat this feisty frond.”

“Venus…  Star… Power!” called out Jo as she held out her hand, a delicate wand spinning on her palm before she closed her fingers around it, the yellow star gleaming in the light of the gathering stardust.  Her nails glowed brightly as the power transferred from the wand to her body, the gleaming twinkling stardust encircling her arm and then her whole body as she spun and twisted like a gymnast with a ribbon.  The star dust quickly covered her entire body, eclipsing her behind the blinding brightness.  In a burst of energy equal to a small nuclear bomb, she re-emerged, hair blowing back as her body was instantly clad in her Sailor Scout uniform: the white leotard top with the goldenrod skirt and blue bow, every piece of loose fabric waving in the fading energy burst.  Standing where Jo had been standing was Sailor Venus.

“Jupiter… Star… Power!” Ellen called out next as she raised her arm straight up in the air, as though reaching for a piece of the sky.  From the air around her, sparkling green particles began to gather and condense as they entered her through her own fingernails turning them a glittering shade of forest green.  Lightning crackled around her like a static ball and a black handled star wand appeared in her hand.  She spun in the hair-raising, static-charged air as the lightning gathered around her like the rings around an atom.  The air darkened like a sudden storm and she emerged from her luminescent shell in a blue flash of electricity clad in her own Sailor Scout uniform.  She wore the same white leotard as Venus, though her skirt was a dark forest green and her bow bubble gum pink.  Her hair was tied back in a high pony tail revealing the green emerald, source of her mystical power, at the center of her golden tiara in place on her forehead.  Standing atop her long graceful legs was no longer Jo’s mother, but a rejuvenated Ellen radiating otherworldly grace and beauty, ready to kick anything’s ass that came their way.

“Somebody get this damn weed off us, damnit!” Bobby called out, sounding cantankerous as ever, though his voice was strained.  Beside him Gabriel could only grit his teeth and groan as he continued to struggle against the vines that bound him tightly.

Sailor Venus called forth her power in a sequence of precise moves like the graceful Kata of an ancient and forgotten martial art.  The power of love her connection to her Star Power provided her glowed about her in a swirl, making her golden hair rise above her head like a flame as she called out her spell: “Venus… Love Chain… Encircle!”  She aimed the resulting flow of energy right at the atrocity before them, knowing that her love power could never hurt her friends.

The vines broke and tore away from their captives.  The flower was thrown back by the force of the rupture but failed to be beaten as it lurched and swayed unsteadily on its talon-like legs.  The large petals curled closed again like a hibiscus saying goodbye to the daylight.  Sailor Jupiter wasn’t going to give it the chance to get away.  She called forth the power of Jupiter, lowering her head in concentration, feeling the crackle and spark of a fresh wave of electricity as the lightning buzzed alive between her hands.  Her focus turned the crackle to a compact disk of glowing energy that she sent hurtling towards the monstrous foe with an echoing cry of “Jupiter… Thunderclap… Zap!”  True to its target, the disc hit the monster square in the chest and its claws dug deep trenches in the asphalt as it was pushed back far in the distance.

Venus and Jupiter rushed over to where Bobby and Gabriel had collapsed, concerned that the plant had drained them and left behind only the husks of their former selves.  “I hope we aren’t too late.” Castiel voiced their concerns as he rushed alongside them to see the damage done.  Jupiter leaned down to help Bobby back to his feet while Venus held her hand out to Gabriel.

“Not to tell any of you how to do your jobs…” came the snarky accent perched out of harm’s way, not to mention out of helping range too.  “But that plant creature seems to not be quite as dead as one would hope after being blasted by Jupiter’s lightning.”

The group all turned to look at the point where the plant had disappeared from view, or so they had thought, but found instead that it was standing in the center of the road, head bent over, steam or smoke rising above it, its breathing so laboured its shoulders were visibly rising and falling even from their distance.

“That’s one stubborn weed!” exclaimed Jupiter as they took up their fighting stances once more.

Even from this distance, they could see the plant-monster’s eyes glowing an incandescent red.  The snapped off ends of the vines, sticking out from the sockets under the creature’s oversized shoulder pads, began to grow and twist together again into the previously dismembered arms.  A collective chill ran through the group as it spoke with a sandpaper scratch.  “Let’s play.”

Narrowing his eyes at the robust enemy, Gabriel’s lips pulled up into a half smile, “Play huh?  Time to turn this plant into fertilizer.”

He stood up, throwing his arm straight up into the sky calling forth Mars Star Power as his own wand twirled in his palm and he seized it tightly.  A whirlwind of fire gathered around him and enfolded him tightly like a cocoon.  From its shell, emerged Sailor Mars in her short red skirt and scarf over her white scout leotard.  A purple bow fluttered on her nicely rounded bosom, her previously short sandy locks now flowed down to below her waist and a red opal adorned her forehead in its gold tiara.  Only the light brown eyes that caught the light in that particular way, like mischief was to be done, and a shadow of Gabriel’s pre-transformation facial features reminded the onlooking scouts of the man she had been a moment before.  Mars radiated sexy confidence as she strutted her long legs into her final pose.

Taking his cue, Bobby reached up with a reluctant cringe.  “Mercury Star Power,” he forced out through clenched teeth.  The blue Star Wand appeared in his hand and he closed his eyes, ready for the ineluctable transformation.  A ribbon of water wrapped around his stocky frame and he felt his skin, bone and sinew crawl before the light burst out of the water bubble encasing him.  He emerged as Sailor Mercury in blue knee-high boots, blue skirt and scarf and white bows.  Her short hair had grown, framing her face in an earlobe length soft bob that darkened to a blue-black shade.  Power glowed from the blue sapphire in her tiara.  Mercury struck her final pose, feeling the air on her bare legs and cringing at her ungainly, barrel shaped stockiness – everything about her square and stubby and reminiscent of a drag queen trying out for Disney on Ice.

“Bobby, your beauty and grace never cease to amaze me,” drawled Crowley.

“Stow it, asshat!  We got pesticide to spray,” Mercury said, her voice retaining Bobby’s scratchy and acerbic tone, if a little higher than usual.  Determined to be rid of this monster quickly so she could change back, Mercury stepped up and squared off with the creature down the road that was looking more and more recovered by the second.  With a perplexed frown, Mercury turned to the rest of the group who hadn’t moved at all.  They stood, staring and blinking at her lumpish self.

“What?” Mercury barked at them, “Do I look like a ditchable prom date to you?”

Mars stood back, crossing her arms over her chest and looking Mercury over slowly, letting her eyes scan her freshly transformed body, “Well, actually…”

“Shut up!” Mercury grumbled.  She turned back towards the plant muttering an angry, “Balls,” under her breath.

As though it had been waiting for its cue to act, the plant creature’s face contorted into a rage as it screamed “Here I come, ready or not!”  It charged down the scouts, bearing down towards them at a full run on its many sharp ended talons.  Mars bent down her head over her clasped hands, her forefingers extended towards the sky.  Gathering the power of the stars like someone gathering her thoughts, Mars uttered her words of power, “Mars… Fire… Ignite!” and a swirling fireball burst forth, aimed right at the plant.  With speed unlike anything the Scouts had ever faced, the monster jumped out of the way, its leap taking it up and away to land on the side of one of the nearby ten-story buildings.  Two thirds up the side, it crawled on the window panes like an overgrown tarantula.

Unfazed, Jupiter jumped in calling out her own Power Spell, “Supreme Thunder Crash!”  A bolt of lightning came down upon the very place where the creature had been a moment ago, but too quick once again, it had already scurried away.  Venus followed its trajectory as it jumped from the building and over their heads to land in the street, eight stab holes breaking up the pavement when it landed.  Mercury jumped out of the deadly talons’ way just in time to not be impaled.

“Where the hell is Sam?  We need back up, right now!” said Jupiter as she turned to face the slippery foe.


	4. Chapter 4

The crash of the monster’s landing nearby made the fragment of glass clinging to the top groove of the window frame tremble uncertainly before crashing to the floor with a delicate tinkle that went unnoticed by the sole occupants of the room: those responsible for the pane’s demise.  Chuck sat on the ground by Sam’s head growing increasingly impatient with the giant hunter’s persistent state of unconsciousness.  He could hear the sounds of fighting out there just beyond what his eyes could actually see from the relative safety of the deserted restaurant and his worry increased with each passing minute.  It was time for Sam to get up now.

Chuck leaned over the prone man’s oversized back and grabbed his shoulders.  He was gentle at first, barely applying pressure hoping Sam would wake up before he had to get too close.  As his touch failed to wake him, he grew bolder and more frustrated and he shook him harder and harder.  His efforts rewarded by barely a snort, he stopped and watched Sam sleep the sleep of the deeply comatose trying to figure out what to do.  Watching as the man’s nostrils flared a little, he scrunched his face between a frown and pursed lips.  He found a paper napkin that had fallen to the ground and barely thought about what he was doing before twisting it into a point and sticking it up Sam’s nose.  Half hope and half dread filled Chuck as Sam seemed to stir.  He was sorely disappointed though, when Sam only sneezed and flopped over onto his back like an over-tired toddler.

“Come on, Sam!  Now’s not the time to be sleeping on the job.”  The relatively short, brown haired man looked up and out at the writer typing furiously.  “Really?  You’re going to force me to make bad puns?” With a shake of his head he added, “And I’m not short.”

With a resigned sigh, Chuck turned back to Sam’s inert, passed out form.  “This is what I get for writing those damn novels.  Just don’t make me kiss him!  Crazy fans and their crazy ideas,” he finished with a mumble before pressing his hand to Sam’s mouth and pinching his nose closed with his thumb and index.  He held on as Sam’s autonomous system struggled to get oxygen into his lungs.  Suddenly, Sam’s eyes fluttered open and he sat up abruptly, breaking Chuck’s hold and taking in a deep breath.

“Are you insane?” he yelled.

“Sorry!” Chuck threw his hands in the air in a gesture of sheepish contrition.  “I-I think the rest of the team’s in trouble.  You gotta get out there!”

“Damnit!”  Sam rushed to his feet, remembering the circumstances that had brought him where he was.  He headed for the shattered window hellbent on getting back to the fight and saving his friends.

“Wait!” yelled Chuck.  Sam turned staring at the man wide-eyed, impatient to get away as the sounds of struggle made their way to his ears.  “You can’t go out like that, you’ll lose!  You have to activate your power!”

Sam straightened up stiffly and looked at Chuck with horror.  The man’s earnest blue glare bore into him unashamed of what he had proposed, and Sam felt increasingly uncomfortable.  “Are you suggesting I drink demon blood?  I-I can’t!  No!  I-I promised Dean, that’s over!”  As Sam continued to stammer and babble, trying to convince Chuck as much as himself, Chuck cut back in.

“Okay, big guy.  Calm the blood lust in your eyes.  Demon blood?  Let’s not go nuts here.”  Chuck’s hand dove into Sam’s jeans’ pocket startling him, but before he could bat his hand away or back off, Chuck had already removed something from it, his fist closed around the object that Sam had not been aware was there until that moment… something pink.  “Use this,” Chuck said with a quiet authority that Sam found he could not refuse.

Chuck held out his hand, the pink something lying flat on his palm.  Hazel eyes wide, eyebrows drawn together, Sam just stared at what had come from his pocket.  “That’s not mine.”

Chuck rolled his eyes and shoved it in Sam’s hand.  “We don’t have time to ease you into this.  Just play along, and we can get out of here.”

Sam stared down at the small, round, pink make-up compact with the gold star on top at a complete loss.  He had no idea what was happening, and a deep sense of foreboding filled him as his awareness that everything about the situation was wrong slowly started to slip away.  If he gave in, would it disappear entirely?  Had the same thing already happened to the others? Would he become as oblivious as them?

“Oh, quit your whining and get to it,” Chuck said, gesturing at him impatiently.  “Moon Crystal Power…  Go on!”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Sam looked at the compact in his hand and repeated the words with an echo that sounded like someone else had spoken through him.  He glanced around to see who was in the room with them, but just then the compact opened, revealing not the expected blush and applicator pad, but a clear crystal that was glowing and sending out pulses of pink light.  With a will of its own, the compact lifted into the air in front of him and landed in the middle of his chest.  In a panic, Sam tried to pry it off again, but found that he couldn’t budge it, like it had melded not only to his skin, but to the ribs and lungs below as well.  His body grew warm and his skin shifted and wriggled, strangely detached from the sinew beneath it.  In a sudden, swelling eruption of joyful excitement, his body burst into pure light and he closed his eyes feeling the wings break free from his shoulder blades.  The delicate feathers closed in, wrapping him in comfort as they gathered the light back into shape.  He felt himself regaining substance and ribbons wrapped around his arms and legs, molding the light.  He felt reborn and energized, confident, even if his body did feel a little strange.

“Nice,” Chuck said, nodding appreciatively and giving the author a conspiratorial wink.

“What?”  Sam asked, turning to look at Chuck.

“Nothing!  Go get ‘em, Tiger!”

With a frown Sam turned away from his lopsided grin and finally rushed out of the broken restaurant front and into the street.  Clinging still to his refusal to accept everything as it was, he was not prepared for what he saw.  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the monster before him.  What had been a tiny flower before he had tackled Chuck out of the way, had now grown into a towering monster on stiletto talons cracking its vine-like arms like whips.  It was a creature far beyond anything he had ever seen, something that was straight out of a nightmare.

“When I wake up, I am so breaking Dean’s face for watching cartoons all night.”

“Mars Celestial Fire Surround!”

The cry caught him off guard and Sam shifted his gaze to the dirty blonde in the red heels and short short skirt.  There was something somewhat familiar about her, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it before being distracted by the flames that suddenly started to twist and turn around her.  He jumped forward to help her, but the flames shot out, right at the monster.  Its vines were chopped into tiny bits and singed to cinders that fell to the ground.  From the left, jumping right in with a disc in hand that buzzed and glowed like electricity, a green skirted woman in a ponytail ran around the creature to blindside it.  She released the buzzing light right at the monster, but it evaded the projectile.

“That plant’s got turbo drive!” she cried out in what was definitely Ellen Harvelle’s voice.  But how?

Sam didn’t have the time to ponder the mystery.  From the stumped nubs of branch arms, the monster sprouted fresh vines with a gleeful cry and lashed out faster than the gathered women could evade.  There were four of them in all, each wearing the same outfit, but in different colours, like a uniform.  He thought he recognized Jo in the golden orange skirt, though there was something different about her, something more than just Jo.  The vines wrapped around each of their throats and Sam shook himself, feeling the anger and imperative to help rise in him as the four women struggled and groaned, pulling at the vines unsuccessfully.

“It’s got them!” said Castiel’s voice from the base of a tree to Sam’s right.  “Sailor Moon, you must help them!” Sam’s eyes focused on the cat’s white fur raised along its curved spine.  Sam looked around for who Castiel was talking to but saw no one on the battle wrecked street.  He felt a soft slinking pressure on his ankles and calves and looked down to see the purple-black cat winding around his feet and pressing against him.

“I think Wings means you… hot stuff.”

Sam’s eyes strayed from the cat to the red boots that were wrapped around his legs.  Legs that disappeared beneath the edge of a blue pleated skirt that he could barely see beyond the…  In horror and panic, Sam’s hands shot up to cover the two rounded breasts that covered his chest.

“Yes, you have lovely attributes, this is no time to show off,” drawled Crowley, now sitting and licking his paw.  Sam let go the soft mounds quickly, like he had been caught feeling up a girl at prom.  He grabbed at his hair, which was now tied in two long flowing pig tails and his fingers brushed against the metal band on his forehead, furthering his disbelief.  “I think you’ll find, that your friends are running out of time.  So, why don’t we skip the existential gender identity crisis and get to kicking alien plant ass, you barely functioning moron!”

Confusion turned to anger and frustration, and he found himself yelling, “What the hell am I supposed to do?  Use this damn tiara as a boomerang?”

The cat at his feet shrugged.  “That’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” he said as he strutted back to sit with the white cat at the base of the tree.

His face set with pursed lips and hard eyes, he reached up to his forehead and pulled the golden band off.  In his mind, he could hear words resonating as though someone was whispering them to him from a dark recess in his mind.  With great reluctance and a sense of destined inevitability, he wound back his arm for the toss and called out “Moon Tiara Action!” aware that his voice did not have the same timbre as it normally did.

The golden circlet left his outstretched hand and flew around the creature in a blinding white light severing the vines holding the women captive.  It was as each one was freed that he looked more closely at them.  Jo and Ellen were easiest to recognize, though they both had clearly changed: their hair and skin was aglow with ephemeral beauty and they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.  His eyes moved to the long-haired, red-clad woman and he recognized something about the set of her pouty lips.  Gabriel’s features had been smoothed into an awe inducing beauty and grace.  Feeling a little disconcerted, his eyes landed on the last of the foursome.  Though her skin and short full hair glowed in delicate perfection like her peers, with her stocky body and broad legs stuffed to their knees in blue boots, there was no denying that he was staring at Bobby… all the way down to his… her? dark scruff all over her jaw.

Sam snapped back to attention as the tiara returned to his hand and he placed it back on his forehead reflexively.

“Look out stinkweed!” The words spilled from his lips, beyond his control.  His limbs were gesturing on their own as well he realized.  It was like he was driving a car that had suddenly decided to drive itself.  “How dare you use your floral beauty in such an evil way?  Who knows what compost heap you came from, but you’re not welcome here!  And believe me, we get to the root of every problem.”

Off to the side, Crowley groaned and dropped his feline head into his furry paws.

“What?” asked Castiel, confused by Crowley’s reaction.  “I taught her all her best speeches.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” said the snarky cat before moving further away.

Castiel surveyed the area, realising that through Sailor Moon’s attack and subsequent soliloquy, she had attracted the attention of the plant monster and he dashed after Crowley to find a safer perch.  From where he had stopped, coming up on the battle, words continued to spill from Sam’s mouth and his arms kept moving, controlled by some invisible force he was suspecting was responsible for the entire situation to begin with.

“I’m Sailor Moon!  I will triumph over evil.  And that means you.”

“Sailor Moon!” called out the higher than usual roughneck voice of Bobby from the blue clad girl.

“I know, that’s what I said.”

“No, you idjit!  Watch out!”

Sam just registered the plant monster whipping its vines out at him, clearly bored waiting for him to make his move.  He quickly dove to the side and rolled out of the way.

“Shine Aqua Illusion!” called out the blue clad Sailor Mercury, blasting the creature with a jet of water that left it a prisoner of a clear, iceberg-like prison.  “Sailor Moon!  Use the scepter!”

“Scepter?” wondered Sam, still not sure who was supposed to be running the show at this point.  Then he felt a weight in his right hand, and he raised it to find a long baton-like object the length of his arm.  On the end, was a red sphere wrapped in a golden crescent sitting above unfurled wings.  He could feel himself being taken over once more by that mysterious power welling up from inside as his body wielded the weapon instinctively.  He spun around in a circle, then held the scepter straight up over his head, feeling the energy gathering from the movement.

The plant creature broke free of its ice prison and charged Sam with a screeching laugh that sent shivers skittering down spines.  Sam barely flinched though as words echoed once more in his mind loud as a train whistle and yet silent as fresh fallen snow.  He opened his mouth as he swept the scepter back and forth and the words rang out with a power that swelled and grew inside him and was clawing to come out.  “Moon Princess Halation!”  He lowered the scepter, pointing the crescent wrapped orb right at the charging mass of legs and whipping vines.  Spirals of pink scintillating specs of light mixed with moon crescent dust and star sparkles that burst from the orb and coiled around the monster.

Trapped by the light, the creature froze in terror.  It had failed its master, it thought as the light grew so bright that it felt itself disappearing in its power.  It let out a tortured scream, its glowing red eyes fading to emptiness in the second before the light burst outward, annihilating the monster for good.

All that was left was a pink cloud of dust that wrapped the group of skirted warriors, the Sailor Scouts that kept Earth safe from threats big and small, and for a few moments, it was like they were in their own little world of miniature twinkling stardust.  Sam found himself smiling as he glanced around at the other battle-worn women, who smiled warmly back at him.

From beyond the veil of their cloud of pink came a soft, quietly tinkling voice with a lilting cadence Sam could not help but remember.  “Impressive,” she said with a slow clap.  The cloud finally dissipated revealing the lithe shape of the woman from the day before.  “I never would have guessed,” she went on looking around at the Scouts who remained alert and ready to fight again, “that you, bumbling tribe of nitwits, would have such power.”

She stopped a few feet away from Sam and looked down at her feet, where lay the tattered remains of the original, delicate looking pink flower that had turned out to be a horrible monster.  Sam lowered his glowering stare at the woman and spoke through clenched teeth.

“You?  You’re behind this?”

Castiel’s fur stood on end again as he too turned his anger on the woman.  But something was off about her.  She radiated with a presence much stronger than a normal human possessed.  More even than the monster they had just defeated had.  How could this be?

“Of course!” she said, dropping her tone, “But you know, no one works completely alone.”

“Watch out!” hissed Castiel, alerting the others of the threat, “I sense more than a single entity.”

“Agreed,” said Crowley with a yowl, “There’s more to this femme fatale than meets the eye.”

The Scouts turned to look at the distinctly unthreatening woman with the willowy frame.  She was standing in the middle of the wreckage from the fight, rubble and broken pavement around her vulnerable looking heels.  There was nothing to suggest she wasn’t exactly what she seemed, except the cats were losing their minds.  Then, something caught Sam’s eye as he looked her over again more carefully.  She had a brooch just above her left breast, where it looked like it was pinned to the flimsy strap of her dress; and it had moved.  As he stared, waiting for the tension in the air to reach a breaking point, the brooch unfurled like a butterfly, fresh from its cocoon and shaking loose its wings.  It was an orange flower, like a lily, with six elongated petals, the tips curling under.  It was a flower, only at its center, surrounded by orange stamen, was a woman’s naked torso and head, her flowing pink hair covering her breasts discretely.  She had alabaster skin, much like the woman she was pinned to, and evil radiated from her crimson eyes.

“No!” cried out Castiel, his blue eyes round and wide, “It can’t be!”

“The Kisenian Blossom!” finished Crowley with eyes equally startled.

The cats never agreed on anything, much less on perceived danger, and Crowley mirroring Castiel’s expression, more than anything else, convinced Sam that this was beyond the usual levels of danger – whatever those were in this bizarre reality where he had breas…

“Quite the little welcoming committee,” said the woman in the flower in a high, resonating voice, “Thank you Roseline.”

Sam focused on the name, a memory from the day before coming to the forefront.  Dean had called her Rosalie too.  Where the hell was his brother anyway?  Had this Roseline already taken care of dispatching him while they had battled the plant monster?

“Where’s Dean?” whispered the altered Jo.

“Probably waiting to make a last minute, grand entrance, as always,” grumbled Sailor Mars, flipping her hair back behind her in sexy nonchalance.

Sam turned his attention back to the woman in the black dress who was now conversing with the blossom on her chest.  “I told you this was a perfect place to cultivate our plans.  There’s so much good energy here.”

“Well, in that case, let’s put the petal to the metal!”

“Gladly.”

The Scouts were in fighting stances, ready for anything, ready to summon their powers once more if this treacherous thistle so much as sneezed towards them.  Ready as they were though, when Rosaline raised her arm to the side, Venus and Mercury still went flying into a nearby storefront window, shattering the glass and tumbling through the broken shards.  With a delicate chuckle that seemed strangely disconnected from the power emanating from her, Roseline extended her other arm, and this time Mars went careening into a corrugated metal door.  The force of the psychic toss was such that she left an imprint in the normally unyielding metal.

With a cry betraying her violent temper, Jupiter sprang forward to charge down the villain and defeat her, barehanded if need be!  She swung at the slip of woman who looked like a well-placed poke would make her crumble to the ground, and her frustration grew as she evaded gracefully, not a single punch landing.  A wickedly twisted grin stretched the woman’s lips and Jupiter knew that whatever was about to happen, it was going to be bad.  Rosalie extended her arm straight ahead, palm out, aimed right at Jupiter’s solar plexus.  Instantly the Scout was thrown back by the violent burst of energy.

“Ellen, no!” cried out Sam, his shaky transformed vocal chords sounding like a terrified nine-year-old.

Roseline turned her unnerving stare on Sam, whatever sweetness had been there before she had started attacking the others was completely engulfed by the pure malice radiating from her.  Even her mild lilt turned sharp and hard as she narrowed her eyes at him.  “We’ve done the Sailor Scout Hash, now let’s try the Moon Kebabs!”

She raised her hand towards him, her palm aimed right at the red bow on his chest and Sam could only brace himself against the push he knew was coming.  She bent her finger tips towards him, and to his shock, steel blades burst from her previously perfectly manicured nails.  An evil glint shone in her eyes as she drew back her arm, ready to swipe at Sam with her deadly twelve-inch claws.  Even as he saw in his mind which way to go to sidestep the attack, Sam found that his body had gone completely still and rigid and he could not move a muscle.  A swell of anger rushed through him as he realised that what held him captive in his own, well not quite his own, body was not in fact coming from Roseline, nor from that mysterious blossom attached to her chest, but from that entity that had taken over during the fight.  He was stuck once more following the dictates of its whims, only now, instead of the car driving itself to fight, it had stopped dead in the middle of the road with a semi bearing down on it and its passenger.  Roseline took a step towards him ready to skewer him through and through and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

Then something caught his attention from the corner of his eye: something red like the flash of a flying bird that was gone before he could truly tell what it was.  With a clink and flash, something dug into the ground between Sam’s red boots and Roseline’s black stilettos and they both glanced down to look at it: a single red rose, its thorny stem buried deeply in the pavement.  With a gasp, Roseline stepped back, her arms pulled towards her like she had been burned by the mere presence of that rose.

Sam jerked his head up and around, the brown pigtails swinging into view again from his sharp movement and tugging at his scalp in a disconcerting way.  He tore his eyes from the immediate threat, scanning the area to see if the rose was a harbinger of doom or salvation.  What he saw before him barely made any more sense than anything he’d seen since getting up that morning.  Standing atop a lamppost, like he had stepped right out of the advertisement mural on the building’s wall behind him, was a man in full black formal wear: a black tuxedo over a white shirt and vest, with a top hat on his head and a full, red silk lined cloak waving lazily in the non-existent breeze.  His face was partially hidden by a white, masquerade eye mask, but Sam would know him anywhere.

“What the hell?” Sam had time to ask as the impressive apparition stood above them all, surveying the scene with dramatic focus.

“Nothing good will ever grow in a garden full of darkness, Roseline.  We all know it,” said the figure.

Sam would have rolled his eyes had whatever-it-was let him, “You have got to be kidding me.”  As it was, his eyes were wide with wonder and glued on his brother in the ridiculous outfit.  _Then again, at least he still had his own body_ , Sam lamented in his own thoughts as he remembered the breasts and skirt.

“You have to admit,” came the unaffected British accent from the ground at Sam’s feet, “the half-wit sure can wear a cape.”

Sam shook his head at Crowley, “Don’t encourage him.”

Roseline had also turned a perplexed frown on the man who seemed to know her name, and then she looked back down at the flower at her feet, “A red rose,” Sam heard her mumble.  Her face lit up suddenly, with a smile that was pure joy.  Her long steel claws retracted into her fingernails like they had never been there in the first place and she called out his name like he was the beginning and end of everything, the honeyed tones back eliminating all traces of the previous malice.  “Dean, you remembered!  You remembered our meeting all those years ago!”

Dean jumped down from the lamppost, cape flaring behind him dramatically, and he landed in the middle of the street with all the grace of a feather light cat.  “Your heart was pure then, but not anymore.”

Roseline’s smile faltered and momentary lines appeared on her forehead.  She shook her head in disbelief, “But, we had something special!  We shared our secrets with each other.  Bared our souls!  We could have been happy, Dean!  But you chose this dingbat instead!  You chose her over me!”

Sam startled as she pointed her finger at him, “Hey!  Whoa now!” he stammered, feeling the outrage, “You got it all wrong lady!”  He looked down at himself, closing his eyes tightly as he cringed seeing the perfectly feminine body.  “I may not look like it, but I’m his brother! For Chrissake,” he finished with a mumble.

“She is my friend, Roseline,” Dean said, earning himself his own angry outburst from Sam.

“Who’re you calling ‘she’? Jerk!”  Sam crossed his arms over his chest awkwardly, trying to accommodate the soft mounds there while Dean continued to address Roseline, ignoring him.

“If you believe we could be happy, you must trust Sailor Moon and the people here.”  Dean walked towards them confidently, never taking his eyes off the woman in the black dress.  As he neared them, Sam distinctly heard his brother say under his breath, “Nice knockers, Sammy.”

“Shut up, Dean.”

Roseline’s eyes betrayed her confusion and doubt as Dean approached her.  For a moment, everything looked like it would work out.  Dean reached up to lay his hand on her arm, but just then, the Kisenian Blossom let out a cackling laugh that was disconcertingly like the vanquished flower monster’s canned laughter.  The blossom’s eyes flashed red just as Roseline’s eyes also flashed the same crimson shade and all expression and animation left her face before being contorted once more by a sudden rage, her fine features twisted into something ugly and vicious.

“No!  We can never be happy as long as this bimbo stands in our way!”

“Brother,” Sam protested quietly, unable to stop from feeling cowed and terrified by the growing evil radiating from Roseline in waves.

With a powerful push of her legs, Roseline jumped into the air, flying high above the scene as though hoping to harness the Earth’s gravitational pull to give her attack more power.  At the top of her arc, she pulled a sword from beneath her black hair.  “I will free you from this girl’s spell, Dean!”

Sam watched in horror as she plunged towards him, the tip of the very solid looking metal blade aimed right at his heart, a heart trapped in his chest and trying to beat its way out in much the same way he was trapped in the frozen body, unable to move.  He was a slave to a game with rules he simply could not understand in this crazy, messed up situation.  A dark shadow slipped between Sam and the descending sword and suddenly his view was obstructed by a back as tall and wide as a mountain that seemed to go on forever as he craned his head back to see beyond it.

He realized that the mountain was in fact his brother who had jumped in front of him to block the sword’s blow, the disconcerting knowledge that he was now much shorter than Dean overwhelmed him and he took a step back, the alien body finally responding to his mental command, only to trip on some loose debris and send him sprawling to the ground.

“Roseline, stop!” said Dean, his voice straining from effort as he fought to hold back the blade with his black gentleman’s walking stick.

“Why should I?  She is all that’s standing between you and your happiness!  She’s the one forcing you to keep living this life of pain and torture!  She is the reason you’re suffering Dean!  Without her, you can finally be free.  With me, you can be happy.”

“The only thing standing between the evil forces and the world IS Sailor Moon and the Scouts.  Without their help, this planet would sink into chaos and misery.  Who are you to deny the world their peaceful lives?  Who am I to let you!”

“Wrong!  She’s keeping you bound here to your misery, forcing you with guilt to keep doing something that brings you only pain, for her own selfish reasons!  After I’m done with her, you’ll see!  I will lift this burden from your shoulders.”

With a strength beyond what the slip of a woman should have had, Roseline pushed back against Dean and knocked him to the ground, her sword clattering beside him and away from Sam’s prone body.  With a triumphant smile, she raised her arm, hand in a claw again and she let out a blood curdling scream that was equal parts rage and victory as her nails turned once more into the thin metal blades and shot out towards Sam too fast for anyone to stop the inevitable.  Sam’s stomach convulsed in his belly but could do no more in response to the fresh attack, back to being trapped in a body that would not move.  He squeezed his eyes shut with a cringe as he gritted his teeth.

The world went dark as Sam felt the impact of hard steel and soft flesh.  There was no pain though and he was relieved, but only for a moment.  Then he heard his brother’s groan from nearby…  too close.  Roseline’s scream of horror and pain like a wounded animal confirmed Sam’s suspicions and he knew what he would see when he would open his eyes.  “No,” he whispered as he looked up to where his brother was standing between him and Roseline again.  Sam couldn’t help but notice that Roseline’s blades were still out.  They vibrated as Dean groaned again, and she looked on, eyes and mouth wide open.  Deep pools of dark red blood welled up from under his white shirt around the blades that had buried themselves in his soft flesh beneath.

Roseline pulled back her weapon and Dean swayed on his feet a moment.  No longer immobile, Sam hurried to kneel just in time to catch his brother as he came crashing to the ground, the top hat and mask falling away.  Sam sagged under the weight of his body and Dean’s head ended up pressed back against his chest.  He bent his arms around his brother protectively, noticing how small and weak they looked.  “Damnit, Dean!” he said as his gaze fell on the quickly spreading blood stain.  “What did you do?”

“Protect… Sammy,” he answered weakly.

“NO!  Damn you!  You don’t get to do this again!”

“What have I done?” the whispered question came from a stunned looking Roseline, hands held up to her face as she tried to block out the evidence of her actions.  “I can’t lose him!” she cried out, her eyes wild and insane, “I promised to make him happy!  You promised, Kisenian!”  With a crimson flash, Roseline’s eyes glowed red with rage as she fixed Dean’s dying body.  He began to glow a pinkish red and without pomp or ceremony, flashed out and was gone, like a cheap magician’s disappearing act.  Sam sagged forward, his brother’s body no longer pressing back against him and he couldn’t help but feel hollow, like a very piece of him was missing.  He looked up at where Roseline stood still and found that Dean’s body was cradled in her arms like an overgrown child who weighed no more than a sack of feathers.

“Give him back!” Sam screamed hoarsely as he jumped to his booted feet ready to rain down all the power of his rage on the woman, but his voice sounded thin and shaky to his ears, desperate, when he wanted it to sound threatening.  Paying him no mind, having eyes only for Dean’s sallow face, Roseline rose up into the air and disappeared in a storm of pink petals, just like she had the day before, disappearing somewhere impossibly out of reach, only this time, she had his brother.

Sam collapsed once more to the ground, his shaky legs unable to hold him steady anymore as the tears ran down his face uncontrollably.


	5. Chapter 5

_The rain was falling in buckets, the skies determined to drown the poor idiots who had dared to venture out that evening.  Dean, being one of them, turned up the collar on his leather jacket in a failed attempt to stop it from dripping down his neck.  “Figures I’d be in Palo Alto just in time for the most rainfall in decades.  Sunny California my ass.”_

_He saw the warm glow of a sign still lit in the sleeping University town on a Tuesday night and he looked up with relief as he recognized the universal symbol of a warm welcome awaiting inside.  He pushed open the heavy oak door and shook off his coat in the vestibule before walking into the bar proper holding his jacket at arm’s length to keep the wet from getting into his clothes… not that his jeans weren’t already drenched.  If he had to wait around for his father to be back from his monthly spying on selfish baby bro, then this was as good a place as any… maybe even better than some.  The place was dimly lit, like all good holes in the ground should be, with tables pushed together to form clusters of two or four, the ambitious planner jamming them in too closely for when, if ever, the place got crowded.  Tonight though, it barely had enough patrons to warrant being open at all.  He was a little disappointed to find that the small bar had no pool table for him to hustle up a game, but he did spot a couple college brats drinking imported beers and playing darts.  Probably slumming it, Dean thought with a crooked grin.  He would get back to them._

_He stepped up to the bar and took a seat on one of the stools._

_“ID,” asked the barmaid, right away, from behind the heavy oak counter; not the cute kind he liked to flirt with, the middle-aged kind that had had enough of the world’s turds making their way into her bar._

_Dean still cracked out the charm though as he pulled out his fake ID and held it up to his face with a grin that stretched from one ear to the other.  “Not my best work, but passable, I think.  Damn this baby face.”  He winked at her with the cocky confidence of a young man too stupid to be anything else._

_The woman with the greying locks of black hair took the licence from him with a bored pop of her gum to squint at it nearsightedly.  Dean puckered his lips and looked around at the nearly empty bar, laughing to himself at the irony of using a fake ID though he had been legal drinking age for four years now.  Not that he actually owned a legitimate piece of identification, anyways.  This one said he was little Jimmy Page from Quincy, Washington.  John had boxed his ears good when he had tried to use it on a job once; the man could not take a joke.  Since then, he only used it in bars… and no one ever called him on it.  He turned back to look at the skeptical bar maid and he tried hard not to grind his teeth.  Finally, with the air of a bar owner who had an empty bar and didn’t really care if he was legal as long as he bought drinks, she handed him back the fake ID._

_“What can I get ya, kid?” she asked, chewing emphatically on her gum._

_“Whiskey.  Neat.”  He smiled at her again and she turned away to fill his order.  Dean pulled a bill from his anorexic wallet with a pursing of his lips.  Looked like he was switching to beer after this one.  He looked up and back towards where the preppies had been playing darts, hoping maybe he could get a hand on their lunch money and upgrade.  Which is when he spotted her._

_She was this slip of a girl, dark hair, dark eyes, smooth pale skin, dark cherry red lips, sitting alone at a table in the shadows off to the side of the entrance where he somehow had missed her on his way in.  On the table in front of her was the same little candle flickering in its holder as on every other table, and there was a rose.  Dean looked at it for a moment, perplexed by its presence, but then switched his attention to the girl.  She was sipping at one of those expensive cocktail mixes like a Manhattan or a Cosmopolitan or something you usually ordered off a little drinks card in fancy hotel bars.  Every little movement she did, from picking up her glass, to turning her head towards the door again, to shifting in her seat, was like watching a dancer moving smoothly through her steps.  He cocked his head to the side, glancing at the tight designer jeans and low-cut scoop necked sleeveless black top she was wearing, alternating between tugging the neckline up and the hem down as though undecided if more or less cleavage was the way to go._

_“More,” he said softly to himself, “Always more.”  Maybe killing time in this bar would end up being a bit more pleasant than just hustling a couple kids out of their daddies’ money._

_The barmaid clunked his drink down on the counter and he turned around to give her the bill he had pulled out before.  He took his change, leaving her a dollar tip before taking his drink and walking over to the pretty girl._

_“It’s a damn shame,” he said, as he drew closer to her table._

_She startled around to look at him, “Excuse me?” she asked, a soft musicality to her words that betrayed a foreign mother tongue._

_“Pretty girl like you?  Sitting all alone in a place like this?”_

_“I’m not alone.  My boyfriend’s just gone to the washroom.”_

_Dean’s lips twitched into a cocky grin again, “Come on, honey, you and I both know that you’ve been staring at the door there just waiting for whoever was dumb enough to stand up a gorgeous girl like you.”  He flashed her his pearly whites in a way that had never failed to get him a blush from the ladies before._

_“Oh, God.  You’re really laying it on thick, aren’t you?” Her tone was sharp regardless of the Gaelic lilt, but her eyes kept darting up to check him out, and Dean subtly squared his shoulders._

_“You wanna see just how thick I can be, darling?” he cocked his eyebrow at her, sensing he was close to getting his spot at the table…  maybe even getting some warm company back to the motel._

_The tinkling, musical sound that came out of the girl as she doubled over laughing was almost enough to compensate for the fact that she was laughing at him.  “Oh God!  Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounded?”_

_Dean frowned, losing his self-confidence as his ego took a direct blow.  Time to retreat and nurse his drink elsewhere.  “Um, goodnight then.”_

_“No, no! Please don’t go.  I’m sorry,” she said holding one hand out towards him to stop him from leaving while she wiped at tears of mirth with the other.  “What’s your name?” she asked him, craning her head back to look up at his face.  Their eyes locked for a moment, and he hesitated.  There was something odd about the lighting in the bar, but he could have sworn her eyes were a deep purple. Whatever it was about those eyes, Dean found himself slipping into the chair opposite from her and telling her his name… Not some ridiculous pseudonym or rock star alias, but his name._

_“It’s nice to meet you, Dean Winchester.  I’m Roseline.”_

“What happened to you, Rosie?” Dean asked the girl who was sitting with her back propped up against the clear crystal wall of the enormous gem that held him prisoner.  How long he had been in there he could not tell.  He had been surprised to be alive at all, when he first came to, and he had attributed it to some property of the odd liquid he was floating in.  It was holding him upright in the strange prism, which suggested it was dense, but after a half second of panic, he found that he could breathe naturally, regardless.

He had spotted her right away, sitting at his feet in a circle of light that ended at her toes and left the rest of the space beyond in a deep darkness that he could not pierce.  A sharp pain in his abdomen tugged at his attention a moment and he groaned as it passed.  Looking down at his stomach, he could clearly see the slits in the white shirt and vest where the blades had impaled him when he had blocked Roseline’s attack on Sailor Moon, though all traces of the blood had vanished.

“Do you remember what we talked about that night?” Roseline asked him, stroking the red petals of a long-stemmed rose lovingly.  The same kind of rose as she’d had that night on her table.  The same kind that he conjured when he called upon his power.

There had been something about that night, maybe it had been his growing bitterness and frustration at being forced to follow John around and kill monsters, while he knew Sam had been allowed to walk away; to choose his own life.  Dean was stuck though, a slave to his father’s obsessive hunt for what had killed his mother twenty years before.  Twenty years, and yet he was still searching, hunting for the thing and killing every monster, vampire, ghost and ghoul he came across as he went.  And where John went, Dean followed.  Because he was the good little soldier.  He was the good son.  And all of this, he had told Rosie: a complete stranger he had met one night in a bar and had mostly forgotten about in the years since.  “Yeah, I remember.”

“Do you remember our kiss?”

With a groan and a wince Dean was plunged into another flashback.

 

_It had stopped raining in the few hours that he had been inside the bar with the mystically beautiful Roseline.  Walking along puddle-riddled sidewalks, with her hand in his, he was giddy in a way he had not felt since sitting with Robin on Sonny’s dilapidated couch when he was just sixteen.  In his other hand, he held the rose that had been on her table.  After she had explained its presence as a symbol for the person she was supposed to be meeting, Dean had declared that he was the one she had been meant to meet and as such the rose was his.  He had played with it, twiddling it around and bopping her nose with it once in a way that had made her laugh that musical laugh again, and now he held it loosely between his fingers, like it was just an extension of his arm._

_The lamps on their tall posts were flooding little areas of the wet street with the glow of their bulbs and leaving the spaces between in deep shadows.  He never once worried that what he had told her might have put her in danger, in fact, he felt light and carefree like telling her about all the things that had been frustrating him for so long had made the burden disappear.  He found himself smiling and laughing in giddiness as she talked with that sexy lilt of hers.  Without realizing where they had been headed, Dean looked up and recognized the glowing Coronet Motel sign.  Feeling like the light and easy-going part of the evening was coming to an end, he grew pensive and quiet.  The motel reminded him that he had no home to go back to, instead what he had was a string of motels and nights spent sleeping in the car.  That was the life his father had raised him in.  Going from town to town like a dust mote in the wind, not taking anything with him but memories and a bagful of clothes, and now he would have to leave her behind too.  All that was left for them was maybe a rushed tumble in bed and a goodbye and she would be gone afterwards.  Dean found himself resisting the idea.  He just did not want the night to end.  Instead of pulling a suddenly quiet Roseline towards the door to the motel room he and John were set up in, he kept walking, turning around the corner of the fence and coming to a stop beside the quietly burbling pool, ignoring the sign that clearly said the operating hours were long done.  The lights were all off, but the surface of the pool reflected the lights from the parking lot, bathing them in a blue light that gave a sparkle to her deep and thoughtful eyes as she gazed at the water._

_Neither of them was speaking, there were no words for this feeling that was slowly creeping in on him; the certainty that whatever this was, it was going to end.  Then he felt her hand on his arm and as he turned to look at her, she pulled herself to him and her lips connected with his.  Far from being his first kiss, he nonetheless felt that same exhilarating confusion as though it was.  He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, kissing her as eternity passed them by and fate winked from around the corner.  A fine misting rain began to fall again and seeped into their hair and clothes, drenching them within instants, and still they would not pull apart._

_Until the phone rang._

_Dean’s stomach dropped into his shoes and he ripped away from Roseline’s sweet kiss with startled eyes and panting breaths.  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at one of John’s many aliases on the caller ID.  Roseline’s hand covered the screen and he looked into her rain-soaked face as she spoke, “Don’t answer.  You don’t have to live that life, Dean.  You can choose to walk away.  You can choose to be happy.”_

_The phone rang a third time, like an accusation and he startled, he wasn’t sure anymore if the wetness on his face was entirely the rain.  As the fourth ring began to resonate with finality, demanding his immediate response, his body moved like an automaton and he knew there was nothing he could do.  He would always answer that call, he would continue to be the good little soldier, “I don’t have a choice,” he told Roseline as he hit the button and took the call._

_“Dean? What the hell took so long?”_

_“Sorry,” he grumbled, turning away from Roseline and folding in on himself.  A moment later he hung up the phone and turned back to the girl standing in the rain looking horrified and determined all at once._

_“I have to go, Rosie,” he said, trying to turn away from her accusatory glare._

_“I will help you, Dean.  I will get you out from this crushing obligation.  I promise you, you will be happy.”_

_Dean forced himself to turn away from her and moved towards the motel door, leaving her to stand by the pool.  Part of him hoped that she was right, that she would be the one who would save him from the hunter’s life, but he also knew, that nothing could ever really do that.  He would keep fighting the evils of the world because that’s all he knew how to do, that’s all he was good for.  When he had come out of the room a short time later with all his and John’s things packed away, John was waiting for him, the rumbling Impala in the parking lot, and all that was left of Roseline was the long-stemmed red rose lying on the wet paving stones around the pool._

 

“After you left,” said the woman at his feet quietly, “I knew I had to help you, and I began searching for a way to free you.  I knew you would choose me if you could just leave behind the burden of saving the world from all things evil.  I met a man a short while later who promised to help me in exchange for my soul.  I would have gladly given anything, Dean, to save you, so I accepted.  With the snap of his fingers the world disappeared around me and there was only suffocating darkness.  I existed that way for I don’t know how long, just drifting in that claustrophobic darkness, unable to move, barely aware if I was alive or dead.  The only thing I could feel inside was my yearning for you, my need to help you, so we could be together.  Somehow, the Kisenian Blossom heard my plea.  She felt the pureness of my intent and she chose to help me Dean.  She chose to help us.  She took me in and gave me power and strength I didn’t know I could ever have.  She was just a lonely thing, and in exchange for my friendship, she brought me back to you and she is going to help me destroy all those bad creatures and monsters.  And then, you and I can be together.”

Roseline stood up but wouldn’t turn to look at him.  “You rest now, Dean.  And when you’re all healed up again, I’ll show you what Kisenian promised me.  And you’ll see how amazing a world without monsters can be.”  A cloud of something appeared around her head, like smoke from a cigarette hovering around the smoker, and Dean heard the distant sound of a cackling laugh, so different from Roseline’s musical laughter.  From the smoke, took shape the form of the woman that had been at the center of the flower on Roseline’s chest before.  There was an aura of evil and malice like he had never felt coming from this smoky apparition.  The woman’s face was stretched by a cold smile as Roseline spoke once more, sounding unaffected and distant, “From now on Dean, we’ll be together.  I have lifted your burden.  You never have to hunt and kill another monster.”

Unable to resist the drain on his energy longer, Dean felt himself slip into dark unconsciousness again.

 

The Scouts were gathered around Castiel who was holding court over the group, sitting straight-backed atop a cement barrier.  After Roseline had disappeared into the air with Dean in her arms, they had hurried away from the destroyed city block in order to regroup and decide what their next move should be.  Sam had been sullen and silent ever since, sitting inside a nearby cement tunnel that ran under the busy highway above them.  Jo had gone to sit beside him, putting her arm around his effeminate shoulders easily as he leaned his body forward into a ball, his arms crossed on top of his bare knees and his chin sitting atop them in order to avoid looking as much as possible at his transformed body.  Chuck sat on his other side, ankles crossed loosely in front of him, his hands tucked between his jean-clad legs while he hunched forward to listen to Castiel’s rundown about the Kisenian Blossom.

“A most wicked weed indeed.”

“Oh please, nothing a little weed whacker can’t fix.  Stop being such a drama queen,” drawled out Crowley who had resumed his not-giving-a-crap attitude with the danger over.

“I can’t be a queen, that requires an entirely different gender.”

“A feather boa and a leather bustier and I’m sure you’d do fine.”

Castiel frowned as he looked down at his kitty body then glanced at Crowley narrowing his eyes.  “On her own, Kisenian is just another flower.  She needs someone to act on her behalf.  A pawn.”

“So, what?  Roseline is just an interdimensional sock puppet in all this?” asked Bobby standing beside Ellen and tugging on the hem of his skirt every time the breeze kicked up.

“Yes.  Kisenian waits for someone with a vulnerable heart.  She turns a pure heart, into a dark one.”

“She puts them under a spell?” asked Ellen.

 “Not so much a spell as feeding on everything good leaving only hatred, so they’ll be vulnerable to her influence.”

“I can appreciate the talent.  Do you know how long it takes for souls to be corrupted in Hell?  The wait is tedious.  This is much more efficient.”

“Once attached to a host,” Castiel continued, ignoring Crowley’s commentary, “her power grows until she can destroy entire worlds.  And when she’s done, the host becomes disposable and she moves on, leaving behind only hatred and fear and anger.”

“So, this poor Roseline girl is just another victim?  She’s no older than you Jo.  That ain’t fair one bit.”

“This vicious vine vamp’s got her all brainwashed, rinsed and dried,” finished Gabriel with a shake of his long locks.  “So how do we put this thing in the ground, permanently?  No wait.  That metaphor totally doesn’t work.  It’s a plant.  Putting in the ground is probably good for it.”

“Sit down you numbskull, before you hurt yourself,” Bobby threw at Gabriel with a sneer.  He turned back to the gadget in his hand, “I analyzed the leftovers from the salad toss earlier—”

“Damnit. Shoulda gone with a food analogy.”

“Turns out,” Bobby continued louder, “That it has the same energy signature as that planet we’ve been tracking.”

“If that’s where that thing came from, it’s gotta be where that Kisenian is too!  We’ve got to go after her,” said Jo, jumping to her feet suddenly.

“I agree,” said Castiel, “She must be stopped.  Before she reaches Earth.”

“Let’s make that planet mulch,” said Ellen, squeezing her fist tightly.”

“But mom, Roseline probably brought Dean there…”

“Don’t worry, honey,” Gabriel added sidling up to her and pulling her into his side tightly, “I’m sure that girl’s treating him just fine… If you know what I mean.”

Jo rolled her eyes at his suggestive eyebrow pumping and pushed his slender arm off her shoulders with a shrug, “We just need to be careful not to hurt him… them.  If Roseline is a victim here, we have to get her back too.  I have to get him back…”

“No way.  It’s too dangerous.”  Everyone turned to stare at Sam who was still sitting in the same hunched position as before, hugging his knees.  “No one’s going after her.  This is all my fault, and I refuse to lose any more friends because of it.”

A slow tear dropped from his long lashes and started its journey down his cheek where his previous tears had dried up and he swiped at it furiously.

“Oh for…  Would you get over yourself?” Chuck’s usually quiet and unassertive presence had prepared no one for the sudden outburst and everyone startled before shifting their attention to him.  “Why do you think we follow you into battles?  Why do they fight by your side when they could break off and work on their own, like most hunters?”

Sam was transfixed by Chuck’s fierce blue eyes, unable to look anywhere else as the man clearly expected an answer.  “Mental void?” he said, not sure where the joke had come from, but recognizing that he really didn’t know why this particular group of acquaintances had chosen to lump together when most were loners.

“Naw, dummy.  We value your friendship,” Jo said, giving him a gentle smile, “You always come when we need your help.”

“You boys are like family to us,” added Ellen stepping up to stand by her daughter.

“We’re all family, with you and your idjit brother right at the center.”

“You’re the sweet chewy nougat that holds us together,” threw in Gabriel.  “And you’ve got a great ass.  I’d follow that ass anywhere.”

“One big, dysfunctional family of blundering twits,” added Crowley with a roll of his eyes before he slinked off, clearly done with the mushy love stuff for the night.

Castiel just looked around at the group, a small smile stretching his cat lips.

Jo moved forward and reached her hand down to Sam who just looked at it, blinking in stunned silence.  “We need to get Dean back.  We can’t just abandon him.  He would never abandon us.”

Sam looked around at the gathered women, his eyes landing on each in turn and remembering saving and being saved by each and every one.  With a nod, he took Jo’s proffered hand, their white gloves making them identical, and he let her pull him to his feet.

They gathered into a circle and Gabriel took his other hand then clasped Bobby’s, who linked up with Ellen who closed the circle holding onto her daughter.  They closed their eyes to focus their minds and wills entirely on their destination, seeking out and finding the strange plant signature emanating from the planet quickly closing the gap between them, but still a fair distance from Earth.  There was still time to stop the approaching apocalypse.

As one, they projected their energies up and out beyond the atmosphere and they each began to glow with the power of their planets: red, blue, green, gold and yellow.  Their energy burst upwards, clearing the cloud cover like a rainbow wormhole was opening up, linking all places in time and space together.  The ground beneath them began to tremble and shake and in a sudden blink, they were gone.

Chuck looked at the place where they had been standing, Castiel beside him.  Crowley snuck a glance from around a nearby structure, somehow unable to distance himself from them, no matter his unaffected airs.  Chuck looked up into the sky at the distant stars blinking back at him.  “Go save Dean.  Bring him back.  We’re gonna need him.  We’re going to need all of you,” he spoke quietly.  And then, he was simply gone, vanished, like he had never been there to begin with.


	6. Chapter 6

In the distance, Sam could see the strange planet as they approached it.  It looked like a lump of dead meteor shaped like an Acme rocket from an old Roadrunner cartoon.  Beyond the strange planet, he could see nothing but darkness and the stars speckling the void.  If he looked behind them, he knew that he would see a quickly shrinking Earth, and somehow, he just could not bring himself to do it, as though afraid that the mere sight of that impossibility would mean that reality would suddenly glance his way again and he would find himself suffocating in the void…  He was, after all, travelling in space with nothing more than the scant clothes on his back and the help of this rag tag group of friends.  So, he focused on their destination as though he was watching television – in ultra Hi-Def 3-D.

They were nearly there when the planet suddenly split and opened like a flower blooming.  It continued to hover before them though now it had five parts: four elongated sections pointed at square angles from a round center just like a four-petaled daisy.  They flew above the surface of one of the petal-like sections, Bobby using his visor to scan for signs of life.  Though the outer crust had been no more than dead grey rock, the inner surface was a bright pink.

“The entire planet is covered in those pink flowers!  Like the one that attacked Earth!”  said Jo as the ground zoomed below them.

“Look alive people,” grumbled Bobby, “We got incoming on the right.”

Quickly approaching the flying scouts, was a woman who looked almost identical to the monster that had sprouted from the flower on Earth: blue hair, brass bikini and shoulder pads, and eyes red as rubies, though this one had legs where the other had looked like a toy surgery gone wrong.  It flew straight at them with dragonfly wings humming.

“We’re sitting ducks out here!” yelled Ellen.

“I think I got a plan!” called out Jo.  Using their psychic link from the teleporting, she transferred her intent to the rest of the Scouts who joined in, melding their powers once more.  Together they drew upon their lifeforce and projected it right ahead of them like a shield.  As one they chanted, “Sailor Planet Attack,” and the shield glowed with a surge of energy that disintegrated the colliding monster with the distant echo of a scream.  The shock of the impact caused the Scouts to lose their focus and they went crashing to the planet’s surface, Ellen, Jo, Bobby and Gabriel landing on their high heels, as dramatic and agile as ever, while Sam landed on his tush.

Ellen helped him to his feet, “You alright there, honey?”

“Fine,” Sam grumbled as he swept the stupid pigtails back behind him where he couldn’t see them, “I don’t like this body.  I feel weak, and… short!”

“Ah, but you look so good, buttercup,” slipped in Gabriel with a none too subtle slap to Sam’s skirted bum.

In a flight of fury, spawned of his frustration, confusion and more than a little dose of estrogen, Sam turned raising his gloved fist and swung it right in Gabriel’s smartass face.  The pain in his hand was worth it as Gabriel went falling off his stilettos and landed on the hard ground rubbing at his red and swollen cheek.

“Are you two idjits done?  We got real trouble here!”

Ellen looked around at the relatively quiet surroundings, the flowers seemingly docile for now.  “What’s the story, Mercury?  You see somethin’ on the reader?”

Bobby raised his arm and pointed at something in the distance.  They all turned to look at the round, centre section of the strange planet.  Around it there were four menhir-like slabs of upright stone and at the very middle of the circle, was a very large, glowing crystal.  Inside the crystal—

“Tuxedo Mask!” cried out Jo.

“Let’s go,” said Sam fixing his eyes on the glow in the distance.

“Now hold yer horses,” said Ellen.

“This could be a trap,” added Bobby.

“You’ve been trained well,” said a disembodied voice instantly putting the Scouts on their guard.  They looked all around for its source as it went on, “but I would never use Dean as bait.  Especially not for such an easy catch.”

A shimmer in the distance caught Sam’s attention and he pointed at it.  The shimmer quickly turned into a twisting tornado of petals about halfway between where they stood and where Dean was being held captive.  The twister compressed and became a totem of flowers surging up towards the starry sky and then falling away in a drift, revealing Roseline standing at its centre with the Kisenian Blossom nestled in its spot over her heart.  “I really didn’t think you would come through.  You strike me more as the ones that need rescuing.”

“Hey fern girl!” yelled Gabriel fiercely, “Give Tuxedo Mask back to us!”

“Give him back?  I don’t think so.  I have to keep my promise and destroy all the evil.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jo, her eyes wide and worried.

“Once we are close enough to Earth, Kisenian’s flowers will release their seeds and plant themselves all over the planet.  Millions and millions of pods, each containing seeds that will spread Kisenian’s power to every hidden corner of the world.  They grow on any surface, and they will carpet the world with their beauty.  No monster will be able to hide from them, and soon the planet will be free of them and Dean will be able to live the life he wants, with me by his side.  He’ll be free to love with his whole heart.”

“Yeah?  And what’ll happen when those leechin’ blossoms run out of monster energy to suck?”

Roseline did not answer, her plastic smile firm on her face as she looked at each of them with a chilling gaze.

“Get real!” cried out Jo, “You’re just a psychopath using Dean as an excuse to destroy Earth!”

“Not if I can help it!” growled Gabriel as he charged his power and unleashed a jet of flames right at Roseline.  A swirl of petals covered her before the fire could reach her and she disappeared once more.  They looked all around, searching for her again but she was nowhere in sight.

“Balls!”

“What is it?  What’s wrong?” Ellen asked Bobby who had his eyes glued to the reader again.

“The damn daisies got us surrounded, that’s what!”

Beeps of increasing frequency were coming from the reader in his hands and Sam looked over his shoulder at the red dots that were not only multiplying on the screen but moving in fast towards them; hundreds, perhaps thousands of incoming enemies.  They could feel the negative energy building up all around them like the oppressive fumes coming from a toxic waste dump, but as they each hurriedly looked around, trying to see the danger, they could not see anything moving, much less coming right at them.  The silence was thick as they waited, hairs standing on end, pulses quickening and adrenaline rushing, though there was nothing for them to focus it all on.

“Where is she?  What’s attacking us?” asked Sam when the build up got too much.

“It’s the flowers!” called out Jo looking down and around at all the pink covering the entire surface of the planet as far as the eye could see… and writhing.

Out of the ground cover emerged another of the Kisenian creatures.  This one had the blue hair, copy-pasted woman’s torso and glowing red eyes that seemed to be the base model of all the different creatures Kisenian spawned, but it had the lower body of a green cobra.  Quickly, four more identical creatures shot out of the ground, and then more still popped out of the flowers until there was an army of lizard-plant-ladies set on their destruction and filling the air with their wicked, blood-curdling laughter.  Before they knew it, the Scouts were surrounded by the monsters.  They turned their backs to each other and closed in their circle so none of the things could sneak up on them and blindside them.

“Sailor Moon!  Let’s nip this in the bud with your Moon Scepter,” said Jo, poised and ready for a fight.  “Then we can save Dean and get off this cursed planet.  What do ya say?”

Sam flinched at the reminder of his transformation, but he quickly recovered feeling the heavy scepter appear in his hand once more.  It was time to finish this.  “You got it.  Guys – a little cover I think.”

Sensing the impending attack, the creatures’ eyes glowed brightly, and they cried out a resonating yell of rage as they charged the group in synchronicity, as though their minds were linked.

“Let’s whip these witches!” cried out Ellen as she summoned her lightning bolts.  “Supreme Thunder Crash!”  Lightning came crashing to the ground, splitting into zig-zag branches and pulverizing an entire row of the creatures like so much dust in the wind.  Their numbers swelled once more however, easily recovering the ground lost through her attack.

“Venus Crescent Beam Smash!” Jo cried out as she swung around, whipping a beam of energy from the tip of her fingers and making more of the monsters puff out of existence in a shower of petals.

“Shine Aqua Illusion!” jumped in Bobby, a concentrated blast of water rending a wedge in the plants’ line as they were annihilated, the echoes of their dying screams all they left behind.

“Mars Fireball Crash!” called out Gabriel next as he spun and lashed out with a tongue of flames carving out his own line within the ranks of the encroaching army.

Sam closed his eyes allowing his body to take over his thoughts and actions once more.  The words for the spell emerged from deep within like a cry from the bottom of a well and he rocked his head back as he felt the powerful surge rush through him and out to the scepter.  “Moon Princess Elimination!”  From the tip of the moon baton, burst a concentrated beam of energy like a laser destroying every creature in its path and straight down to hundreds of rows back.  Holding onto to power as it continued to surge through him, Sam turned guiding the beam to eradicate the field of pernicious poppies around them.

Roseline reappeared floating high above the battle field, and like a general guiding her army, she called a retreat.  “Better fall back quick and regroup… so we can really nail them.”

Panting from the exertion, but wary to let their guard down, the Scouts stood with their backs to each other and looked all around for where the threat was going to come from next.  “I don’t like this,” said Bobby, once again looking down at the readings from the field around them.  The gadget suddenly began to beep furiously fast and Bobby’s eyes opened wide.  “Watch out!  They’re grouping and their energy signatures are going off the chart!”

They turned to see what Bobby was looking at and they watched as the sea of pink flowers pulled away from them like the warning ebb tide of an impending tsunami.  In the distance, the flowers began to group and pile until they had formed a towering pillar of petals and stems growing ever wider even as they watched.  “They’re multiplying!  No!”  Jo cried out as the pillar leaned towards them and suddenly surged, aimed right at Sailor Moon.  Gabriel grabbed Sam by the arm and swung him to the side and away.  As he tumbled down a small hill, Sam couldn’t control the yelp and high-pitched scream that jumped right out of his throat.  He came to a stop, scratched and bruised, and looked back to where the rest of the Scouts were seconds before the energy sucking leech blossoms collapsed onto the spot where he had just been – and where they still were.

“No!” he cried out as he watched his friends disappear, buried under the new mound of thick flowery carpet.  The flowers filled in all the gaps, making it impossible for Sam to distinguish where the new mound linked up to what had been there before.  He fixed in complete horror the spot where they had been, expecting them to burst out from under the ground cover any second.  The seconds turned into minutes, and still he could see no movement, no sign from his friends.  His muscles finally reacting to his anger and fear, Sam jumped back to his feet and scrambled up the hill.  He fell to his knees and frantically pulled and tore at the flowers, trying to dig out his allies, friends… his family from the grips of the Kisenian Blossom.

“No! Damnit!  Hang on guys!  I’ll get you out of there!”  His frustration grew as every flower he pulled up was replaced by two more and he was just not getting anywhere.  He sat back on his heels in defeat, feeling the overwhelming odds crush his soul with lonely desperation.  “I can’t do this by myself!”  He looked all around and all he could see was the ocean of deadly blooms and he knew he could not beat them all on his own.  They had lost.  Earth was lost.  Dean was lost.  A tear rolled down his cheek, quickly followed by another as they flooded his eyes coming up from his inner most well, triggered and amplified by the overwhelming feelings of loss and failure.

“What a coward,” said the acid tongue from above him, “No wonder Dean feels he has to protect you all the time.  Look at you!  Useless.”

Choking back his sobs, Sam jumped to his feet, grabbing the scepter again, “Moon Princess—”

“Stop,” said Roseline, sounding bored as she glanced to the side and snapped her fingers.

The ground shook as a thick vine emerged between them, the army of blossom snakes cackling and laughing lined up neatly behind their leader.  Sam’s eyes were transfixed by the vine though as he saw the Scouts tightly bound to it, unconscious but alive!  “Surrender Sailor Moon.  Surrender your claim on Dean’s heart!  Give me your magic wand and I will release your friends.”

Sam frowned, shaking his head, trying hard to think clearly through the conflicting emotions.  “What about Dean?  What’s going to happen to him?”

“Dean is mine, and mine alone.  The choice is live the rest of your days alone and friendless or give yourself up knowing their lives will be spared.  It’s all up to you, Moon Princess.”  Roseline waved her long fingers lazily towards the vine, and as though it had been waiting for that very signal, a pink surge of energy ran down it from tip to roots.  Jo, Ellen, Bobby and Gabriel cried out in pain as the energy touched each of them, lighting them up like some lurid Christmas tree.  When Roseline waved her fingers again, the light faded away and the Scouts sagged against their bindings, drained and limp.

“You’re so mean!” Sam cried out, dumbfounded by the cruelty in Roseline… and all for what?  “Dean would never choose to be with someone like you.”

“All is fair in love and war, princess,” she said with a sneer.  “Their fate is in your hands, it’s all up to you really.  Your scepter, or your friends.  Your call.”

Sam looked at the scepter resting on the ground under his clenched hand as he considered his choices.

“Not the scepter!” came a weakened voice.  Sam looked up to see the pain in Gabriel’s face as he clearly struggled to get the words out.  “You can never give it up.”

“Don’t let that bitch use us against you, Sam,” added Jo with a tired groan.

“The scepter belongs in your hands only,” said Bobby through clenched teeth.

“You cannot surrender it, not even for us, you hearin’ me?”

Roseline rolled her eyes and reactivated the energy zap, turning the scouts’ pleas into incoherent groans and cries while the flowers laughed their canned laughter.  “What’s your choice?  You’re going to let them die for your stubbornness?” A smug smile pulled at her lips as though she already knew Sam’s choice and was just waiting for his inevitable spineless surrender.

“Never,” whispered Sam pulling himself to his feet.  He lifted the scepter towards Roseline, and she frowned, flinching regardless of having the upper hand.  Then, Sam opened his hand and let the heavy scepter fall to the ground with a dull thud.  “I’m sorry,” he continued, looking towards the Scouts who had fallen limp once again, “I can’t turn my back on them.  Not after all we’ve been through – all we’ve done.  I cannot do what I do without my family: my friends, my brother.

“So, you win.  Take the scepter.  Kill me.  But let them live.  I’m begging you.”

“You whiny coward!  Fight them damnit!” Gabriel’s anger barely made Sam flinch though.

“I can’t.  I can’t let her hurt you.  If this is the only way I can save you, then so be it,” Sam finished, bowing his head.

A shadow of uncertainty swept over Roseline’s fine features a second before she doubled over clutching at her head and wailing in sudden pain.  One by one, the creatures behind her faded and disappeared echoing her cry as though her control over them had slipped and their energy alone was not enough to sustain their shape.  The vines holding the Scouts prisoners also disappeared, releasing the four girls and sending them crashing to the ground with weak groans.  Sam scurried to them to check they were alright, sweeping long hair out of their faces, and checking pulse points on their necks.

“Oh God!  What am I doing?” came the tortured sound of Roseline’s voice behind them.  “I’m hurting the people who care about Dean!  The ones that he cares about too!  This is… wrong!  They are not the monsters Dean has to fight.”

“Roseline,” lashed out Kisenian with her cruel tongue, “She tricked you.  She won’t let you have Dean!  She’s going to take him far away from you.  You will never be with him.  You will never see him again!”

“No!” cried out Roseline, her eyes flashing red momentarily as she straightened up again, “Dean and I are meant to be together.  I won’t let her take him away from me again!” she screamed, her moment of uneasy uncertainty overridden by Kisenian’s evil mind control.

“If you help me get rid of Sailor Moon, I’ll make sure Dean remembers your special bond, so you can be happy, together forever.  But that cannot happen until Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts are gone!”

Sam looked up at the aura of malice surrounding Roseline as the Kisenian Blossom weaved her spells and lies.  Roseline looked conflicted as she looked down towards where the Scouts were slowly regaining their senses, but the smoke trail of the Blossom wrapped itself tightly around her prey and squeezed like a boa.  With a desperate gasp, a red flash blew out from where Kisenian had wrapped herself around Roseline and Sam covered his eyes as the light grew too bright to look at, bathing the field all around in blood red.   The brightness subsided and Sam looked again at a Roseline transformed into a monster herself.  Kisenian had her thick pink vines wrapped tightly around her shoulders, her claws digging deeply into the poor girl, whose eyes had gone blank and glassy.  Sam remembered what Castiel had said about how the Kisenian Blossom took over a person and used them until they had served their purpose then left them a shell of resentment and hatred.  Kisenian was going to destroy Roseline, whose only mistake had been to fall in love with the wrong person.

 

Meanwhile, Kisenian’s hold on Dean’s prism prison was weakening while she focused her energy on controlling Roseline.  With a groan he pushed on the clear wall until it cracked and shattered from the pressure.  The regenerative liquid spilled out, dragging Dean with it and making him tumble to the ground of the flowerless headquarters platform.  With much effort and pushing through the pain that felt like it was splitting him apart, Dean got to his feet.  “This ends now,” he said through his gritted teeth.

 

Helped by Kisenian Blossom’s pale pink tendrils, Roseline had become a true monster hybrid.  She aimed her open palm at Sam and a powerful push of energy sent him flying into a nearby boulder.  The force of the impact broke the stone and left him weak and slow.  Roseline grabbed him from behind and lifted his weakened body, wrapping her arms tightly to hold him in place.  More pale pink tendrils emerged from the ground and wrapped themselves around Roseline’s legs and body lending their strength to hers.  A bright light blinded Sam, making it impossible for him to see anything.  As the first tendrils reached him and wrapped themselves around his own legs, he felt his strength drain out of him and his body weakened instantly.  He tried to struggle against his bindings, but from behind he heard the odd double voice of Roseline and Kisenian speaking.  “Your energy will sustain us for a long time.  Fight us all you want, your vitality is only sweeter when you do.”  The pain of the energy being leeched out of him was too much and Sam screamed.  “Give up, Sailor Moon.  You know I’m the only one who can love Dean,” said Roseline’s unaffected voice, like she was reciting an old speech she had memorized, “All you do is cause him pain.  You abandoned him when he needed you the most.  I will never do that to him.  I will stay with him forever. And together, we will be happy.  I’ll take him away from all the pain you have caused him with your betrayal.   Each of you have abandoned him by siding with Sailor Moon.  None of you can love him like I do!”

Fighting through the weakness in her body, Jo struggled to her feet.  “You don’t know,” she said weakly, before finding her voice and putting all her remaining strength into it.  “You don’t know, Roseline, what it means to love Dean Winchester!”  Roseline screamed her rage and aimed her power at her, sending her back to the ground.  But she had so much more to say and she would not be silenced, “Love isn’t controlling another person, forcing them to do what YOU want by taking them away from the people they care about.”  She pushed herself to her feet again, her absolute certainty in her words, in her feelings, lending her strength, “Loving someone means that you give them what THEY need.  And that’s not just flowers and pretty promises and sex.  Loving Dean means that you are willing to do it all… to sacrifice everything for him, to give him what he needs.  And that sometimes means walking away from him, when he needs space.  And sometimes it means holding onto him while he pours his soul into you and you feel like it’s going to kill you, but you do it anyways.  Sometimes it means crying because you know you can never make him as blissfully happy as he makes you with just a smile.  And sometimes it means you have to die,” Jo faltered for a moment, holding her stomach with a groan, “You die, so he can go on kicking evil monsters like you in the ass.  Because THAT’s what it means to love the saviour of the world!  It’s understanding that he can never be yours, because he belongs to the world!”

Roseline’s face contorted into an ugly expression of rage and she let go of Sam as she turned her focus onto a crumpled Jo.  “You’re the one who doesn’t understand.  You, all of you, weigh him down.  He’s the one who’s always sacrificing himself, his dreams, his desires, because he has to save you.  Well if you’re all gone for good, he won’t have to keep saving your useless hides!  He’ll be free!  Free to be with me!  Free to be happy!”

“You think Dean would choose to be with the person responsible for killing everyone he loves?” yelled Gabriel, “Listen to yourself!  Kisenian has been lying to you, filling your head with ridiculous ideas and blinding you with doe-eyed dreams of a happy domestic life.  But do you really think she’ll stop at the monsters?  Why would she?  Everyone is on her list.  No exceptions, exchanges or refunds!”

“You’re LYING!” screamed Roseline, tearing at her hair, “You’re trying to trick me into letting him go!”

“You’re the one being tricked,” Ellen said, adding her voice to the dialogue, “All Kisenian wants is to suck Earth dry.  All of it!  Dean and you included.”

“No,” Roseline said, a tremor in her voice, “No, she’ll find a place for Dean in her plans.  You’re the obstacles that stand in the way!  But once you’re gone, everything will fall into place,” with a shake of her head and red gleam in her eye, anger twisted Roseline’s face into something ugly once more, “I think I’ll start with baby brother Sam!”

Roseline raised her clawed hand, not even looking remotely human anymore.  Deadly sharp vines shot out of her back as the Scouts scrambled to try and save Sam from being shish kabobbed.  They screamed his name trying to stir him from his blank-stared coma, or maybe in a hopeless plea to some deity to intervene.

When all was lost, Roseline suddenly froze, her mouth open in horror as the vines planted themselves all around Sam’s body, inches away, but not touching him.  The Scouts turned their attention to the monster as her whole body trembled and shook, a single red rose’s stem lodged deeply in her chest, right where Kisenian Blossom’s hold was strongest.  Her eyes looked up from the deadly rose and a single tear dropped from her eye, “Dean,” she whispered as she fell to her knees.

The group turned as one to find Dean, in his caped tuxedo, mirroring her as he collapsed from the effort of his escape.

“You choose them?” Roseline asked, another silent tear making its way down the path of the other.

“Yes,” he struggled to say as he leaned forward on his hand, the other wrapped around his middle.  “I will always choose my family over a monster.”

“Dean!” cried out Jo as she rushed to his side just in time to catch him in her arms before he collapsed completely.

The rose lodged in Roseline’s heart broke apart the cursed Kisenian’s hold over her – red glowing spider-web-thin fracture lines appearing everywhere the Blossom’s vines had entangled the poor girl.  The fractures spread, letting out the evil in a growing light as Roseline cried out Dean’s name in fear, pain and confusion.  Every piece that was a part of the Kisenian Blossom shattered like shards of a broken mirror and all that was left was the shell of a girl Dean had once spent an evening talking to about life.

Like a poison seeping out and spreading across the planet’s surface, slowly the seedlings of the Kisenian Blossom wilted and fell and disappeared in a flare of light that went from flower to flower like lit matchstick heads, leaving behind nothing but cold hard rock.

“It’s all bare!” cried out Gabriel, relieved that it was over.

“Earth is saved,” agreed Ellen as she sat heavily on the ground, thoroughly exhausted.  She and Gabriel glanced at each other and a giddiness took a hold of them both, coming out in quiet laughter.  Bobby made his way to where Sam was lying on the cold ground not far from where Roseline lay on her side, unmoving.

Cradling Dean’s head in her lap, Jo was crying.  Dean reached up slowly with his gloved hand and caught a tear as it rolled to the edge of her jaw.  “What’s wrong?” he asked her softly.

“Nothing,” she answered, quickly wiping at the tears that just would not stop, “I’m just relieved you’re okay.”

Dean’s lips stretched into a little corner smile, his teeth just peeking out as he teased her, “What happened to self-respect?”

Jo’s tears instantly stopped, and her breath hitched once, “Screw you, Winchester!”

With a chuckle, Dean pushed up onto his elbow and leaned towards her, his hand on her face as his lips locked with hers.  Off to the side, Sam stirred from his state of shock induced coma and sat up.

“Easy now, son.  Go slow.”

Sam looked at the ridiculous male/female hybrid that was Bobby stuffed into the skimpy scout outfit and shook his head, blinking away the image that just wouldn’t go away.  He looked at the landscape that was suddenly completely devoid of details, even the ground looked no more defined than a blank page.  He turned his head and saw Dean kissing Jo and suddenly everything made sense.  Realization dawned on his face as he looked around in wonder once again.  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered.  He looked behind him to the girl lying on her side, sound asleep and just waiting for the final denouement.

“Dean?” Sam said, aware suddenly that his voice was back to normal.  A quick glance down confirmed that he had regained his own body too, but that wasn’t surprising.

“Busy,” Dean mumbled as his mouth pressed against Jo’s, “Call back later.”

“Dean,” Sam insisted, “Don’t you think it’s time?”

Reluctantly, Dean pulled away from Jo who was looking around at Sam with her eyebrows drawn together.  Everything had disappeared from around them, like someone had drawn a black curtain around the group of hunters, a spotlight shining down on them.  Dean’s confident expression wavered slightly as he looked back at his brother.  “Time for what?”

“You know what, Dean,” said Jo, drawing his attention back to her.  Her eyes betrayed an unsettling sadness that Dean could not bear.

“No.  I don’t want to go back there.”

“Dean,” started Bobby, “You know you don’t have a choice.  Lots of people out there need ya, son.”

Dean shook his head left to right in denial, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Don’t I?” asked the older man as he regained his more usual jeans and ratty baseball cap.  Then that image began to flicker in and out showing a Bobby who was wheel-chair bound.

“No!” cried out Dean, turning away, “I can’t.”  He swallowed forcibly, trying to keep the pain from overtaking him.  “It’s all my fault.  That demon possessed you to get to me.”

“That’s horse-dung and you know it.  I don’t blame you one bit, boy.  I did this.  I turned that knife on that evil sonofabitch that was going to kill ya, and I don’t regret that one bit.  Consequences be damned.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back the emotions and the pain.  He felt the soft, gentle touch of a cold hand on his jaw and he opened his eyes again.  He choked back a sob as he looked right at Jo’s face, a foot away as he pressed the detonator switch in her other hand.  Her face was pale and grim, her lips were blue, and he knew that when he looked down, he would see the blood covering her shirt.  Ellen came to sit beside her daughter, kissing her temple affectionately.

“I let you die,” he said, his voice roughened by the hurt in his soul that was shaking him to his core.

“You let me help, the only way that I could.”

Dean squeezed his eyes tightly, a single tear breaking free and rolling down his cheek as he ground his teeth together.

“It’s time to really finish this, Dean,” said Sam, his voice stopping him from sinking completely into his low self-worth.

“How?” he asked his brother roughly, looking down at his hands blankly.

Sam turned to look at Roseline still lying on her side immobile.  “You have to let it all go.”

“Let what go, Sammy?”

“Whatever it is you’re still clinging to that’s keeping you here.”

Dean looked up at Jo again and she smiled at him wanly, “It’s okay, Dean.”

From the waistband of his jeans, Dean pulled a gun.  It was an old gun, a fancy looking pistol from the turn of the century with a delicate rose engraving on the handle and vines etched into the metal barrel.  “If I do this, you die.”

Jo laid her hand on his cheek again, Dean leaning into the gentle touch.  “I’m already dead.  You need to accept it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know.  But it wasn’t your fault.”

He laid a kiss on Jo’s forehead and then one last soft kiss on her lips.  “Goodbye, Jo.”

“I love you, Dean.”  She gave him a tired smile and he exhaled shakily before turning to stand in front of Ellen.  She held out her hand towards him and he clasped it a moment before pulling her in against him, holding her tightly.

“Hey, now,” she said, patting him on the back, “that’s enough.  You trying to squeeze me to death?”

He let her go, feeling the tears threatening again and he glanced back towards Bobby one last time.

“Get on with it, ya idjit.”

With a nod, Dean walked up to where Sam was standing looking down at Roseline’s sleeping form.  Dean looked down at her too.  “I looked her up, you know.  A few years later.  She was out with some guy.  She had a belly out to here.  Pregnant.  She looked so happy.  And I thought…  That could’ve been me making her happy.  That coulda been my kid in there.  No monsters.  None of this… ugliness.”  Dean held the gun in his hand and aimed it at her head and hesitated.  “How am I supposed to do this, Sam?” he asked, his finger refusing to squeeze the trigger.

“It’s not really her, Dean.  It’s just the idea of her.  You have to let it go.”

Dean looked around to find that he was all alone, standing in the dark with Roseline asleep at his feet.  He took a deep breath, his finger pressed against the trigger of the antique gun.

He squeezed it.


	7. Epilogue

Dean put the gun back down on the dusty shelf.

“Are you done touching everything?”

Dean turned around to see Sam giving him the stink-eye.  Dean looked down at his brother’s chest and his hands shot out to press against his firm pecs, making Sam startle.  He gave his head a quick shake and shuffled from one foot to the other.

“Um… Dean?  What’re you doing?”

Dean looked up at Sam, dead serious.  “You know Sammy?  You’d make a pretty decent chick.”  He slapped his brother in the centre of his chest once and gave him his best smart-ass smile before walking past him and back out of the dusty pawn shop and onto the street.

After a short, confused hesitation Sam followed after him.  “Would you stop doing that?  You always change the subject.  You need to deal with this, Dean.  You can’t just keep shoving it down.  You need to talk!”

“About what, Sammy?”

“Sam,” he said, pursing his lips and grinding his teeth in a way that never failed to entertain Dean.  “You need to deal with Jo and Ellen.”

Dean stopped dead on the sidewalk and turned to look up at his brother.  “Look,” he said completely seriously, “You deal with it however you want, and let me deal with my stuff my own way, okay?”

Dean stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and turned away, walking down the street heading for where he had parked the Impala earlier.  A song had been stuck in his head for the past few hours and he barely realized when he started humming it.  Sam caught up to him and shook his head.

“Dude.  Are you humming Sailor Moon?”

Dean startled and stopped humming right away.  “It’s catchy.  Whatever.  Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my Auction piece! I hope you enjoyed! Keep an eye open for the next round of Fic Facer$ auction coming to you this summer!
> 
> And thank you to my Beta readers: Julia Houston, Caged_Heat_40 and Wisdom of Insanity... Without you guys I think this story would not be half as good as it turned out. Thank you for your encouragements and for putting up with my whining!


End file.
